Technology: Chemical Warfare

The way to big money in the chemical industry is to develop some far-out fiber, plastic or chemical and then to build a fence of patents around it. Example: nylon. At a cost of $27 million, Du Pont developed nylon in the 1930s; for 15 years until its patent expired, Du Pont got about one-third of its profits from nylon.

Last week in Delaware’s U.S. District Court, Du Pont was fighting to protect its far vaster investment ($50 million) in another product, Delrin, a remarkably hard and versatile plastic that, since it was introduced in 1960. has begun to replace zinc, aluminum and steel in products ranging from water pumps to auto dashboards and clothespins. The defendant in Du Pont’s patent infringement suit is Celanese Corp, of America, which recently began to market a plastic called Celcon (pronounced “Sell-con”). Both are acetal polymers and derive from formaldehyde. Both have a high resistance to chemicals, abrasion and wear, are much lighter than the metals they replace. In looks, a layman could scarcely tell a difference between the two.

Neither could Du Pont, which contends that Celanese must have used Du Pont’s formula. Nonsense, sniffs Celanese, which says that it arrived at Celcon by a process all its own and that Delrin anyhow lacks “patentable novelty.” Confident Celanese opened a Celcon plant at Bishop, Texas, that eventually will have a capacity of 30 million lbs., bigger than that of Du Pont’s 25-million lb. Delrin plant at Parkersburg. W.Va. Du Pont hopes to collect damages for patent infringement and to force Celanese to stop producing Celcon.

Originally, Du Pont had hoped to recoup its $50 million investment within three or four years. Now it figures that competition will delay recovery by as many as ten years. Buyers, however, stand to benefit. One month after Celanese announced its intention to market Celcon, Du Pont dropped the price of Delrin from 80¢ a lb. to 65¢.