In today’s blog post, which coincides with the announcement of the 2011 Ocean Tomo 300® Patent Index (OT300) constituents, I would like to make special mention of three companies.
Each reports earnings today and to us, more importantly, has been a member of the OT300 for each of the six years that the index has been published. Because the Index tracks those global companies with the strongest U.S. patent portfolios, this distinction shows a commitment to innovation, a high degree of technological leadership and a confirmation that an efficient R&D investment can lead to differentiated investment returns.
In total, 61 companies have made the OT300 all six years. While many of the 61 come from traditional high technology sectors, media, materials and pharma companies are also included, confirming our understanding that leading technology exists in a broad diversity of sectors.
Baker Hughes Incorporated (BHI) develops technology around oil and gas exploration, drilling, completion and production. It also develops a variety of roller cutter bits and fixed cutter diamond bits. These technologies leave BHI at the forefront of the energy exploration and development business and the companies has remained a leader in the oil field services community.
JDS Uniphase Corp. (JDSU) has long been a leader in the optical networking sector. Its intellectual property is responsible for many of the most important development in telecommunications providing products for telecom service providers, wireless operators, cable operators and network equipment manufacturers. In addition, JDSU has extended its innovative strength into biomedical and environmental instrumentation, semiconductor processing and aerospace.
Finally, Pfizer Inc. (PFE), a perennial leader in pharma R&D, has been included in the index for each of the last six years. Its prescription pharmaceuticals, non-prescription medications, and animal health products have been important contributors to the increase in global health technology.
On a final note, we wanted to mention two newcomers to the index, both in the innovation-rich telecom sector:
8×8 (EGHT), a leader in VoIP protocols, hosted Internet PBX solutions, voice and video semiconductors and related software, is a company we believe should be watched.
KT Corp (030200 KS) of South Korea is making important discoveries in satellite communications, data transmission and wireless telephone services. KT is particularly strong in high-speed Internet access services using asymmetric digital subscriber lines.
Although we have mentioned only a small subset of the OT300 and the 61 companies that have been included all six years of the Index’s existence, we want to congratulate all of the 2011-2012 Index constituents.
Ocean Tomo was founded on the belief that companies with strong intellectual property outperform their intra-sector peers. These companies, and the Index generally, continue to prove this proposition.