ABSTRACT
Knowledge is the source of profits in modern global markets. Early on, DuPont Company integrated scientific labour into processes of industrial production and market competition. In 1902 the company established the Eastern Laboratory. This was followed in 1903 by a second research facility known as the Experimental Station. Each laboratory was different in orientation. The Eastern Laboratory was dedicated to applied scientific problems, while the Experimental Station had a more basic research orientation in the area of explosives. Patent Locks is a well-known problem about public goods in economic theory. Corporate patent departments and legal divisions became the overseers of a corporation's most important assets – its intellectual property rights, especially its trade marks, trade secrets and patents. DuPont Company's experience with some of its nylon patents reveals the hard-nosed way in which the knowledge game was played using patents.
