Last Friday AMS announced that it finally acquired more than 55% of Osram’s shares taking a crucial step in acquiring one of Germany’s most known companies. Osram Licht AG is a multinational lighting manufacturer headquartered in Munich offering innovative and sustainable lighting solutions. AMS AG designs and manufactures advanced sensor solutions. With the acquisition of Osram, AMS wants to create a world class photonics and sensors champion.

Beside these eager plans and AMS growing rapidly in the last years, there is skepticism that AMS, which is merely a third of the size of its takeover target, would not be able to manage a global company like Osram. The size difference between the merging companies is also visible looking at the patent portfolios, which we will be taking a closer look at, in this blogpost.

In September 2016, the German drugs and chemicals group Bayer announced its intention to acquire the multinational Monsanto, known for its Roundup herbicide and GMOs. This merger would produce the world’s most powerful company in the seed and pesticide industry. On 21 March 2018 the EU commission released a Press Release announcing their approval of the acquisition of Monsanto by Bayer. The merger was approved on the conditional divestiture of an extensive remedy package, which addresses the parties' overlaps in seeds, pesticides and digital agriculture. It is for determining such inconspicuous aspects of a merger, like technology overlap, that the EU commission relied on the LexisNexis^® PatentSight^® database and our award-winning Business Intelligence software solution.