A patent can greatly add to the value of both a product and the business. It frustrates competitors. It gives the patent owner a stronger position when negotiating with customers and it is within the financial reach of almost every company.

Whilst our multinational clients are patent specialists our smaller and medium sized companies grossly underuse them. This is usually due to a lack of knowledge about what patents offer and how to apply for them or because they mistakenly assume that patents are prohibitively expensive.  Eureka! AgResearch has eight granted/pending patents. Our staff are inventors on another 12 owned by clients but this number should be over 50. About 80% of patentable ideas were never protected!

My recent article on the use of hard water in spray preparations generated a lot of questions. Most of these were around the order in which products should be added to a spray tank to minimise the interactions between products. This issue relates just as much to organic, plant nutritional and foliar fertilisers products as it does to synthetic pesticides.

About July 2014 the Australian Pesticide and Veterinary Medicines Authority’s (APVMA) introduced severe restrictions on the use of confidential commercial information (CCI) required to access new product registration. This has caused uproar throughout the Australian agchem and veterinary medicine industry. Eureka! AgResearch probably has as much involvement with the APVMA as any company in Australia.  At any one time about 30 or more products we have developed are in the process of being registered by our clients. Data and quality scientific arguments have become far more valuable. We have often been complimented by APVMA staff on the quality of the scientific arguments that we compile to support registration applications. With our considerable experience in the use, application, formulation and mode of action of these chemicals, it is little wonder that we can construct convincing arguments.

Recently, I was at a field day and overheard a farm advisor talk disparagingly about a well-known seaweed product. Eureka! has worked on seaweed products for nearly 15 years and undertaking dozens of studies for companies in our pot and greenhouse facility on the rural fringe of Melbourne. We have also formulated new, improved products for the leading brands in our specialty laboratories in Altona, Melbourne. We can say with authority that it does work, providing you are using the right product, for the right reason and in the right way.