NORDSON CORP

We rely on a combination of intellectual property rights, including patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets and contractual provisions to protect our intellectual property. Our worldwide intellectual property portfolio is strengthened through innovation and brand recognition, and our comprehensive approach for protection and enforcement. We enter into confidentiality and intellectual property agreements with our employees that require them to disclose any inventions created in the scope of employment, convey all rights to those inventions to us and restrict the distribution of proprietary information. Risk factors associated with our intellectual property are discussed in Item 1A, "Risk Factors."

We protect and promote our intellectual property portfolio and take those actions we deem appropriate to enforce our intellectual property rights and to defend our rights to sell our products both domestically and internationally. Although in the aggregate, our global portfolio of more than 2,100 granted and pending patents and more than 1,000 trademarks are valuable assets that are important to our operations, we believe that our competitive advantage is also largely attributable to the technical, marketing and sales competence and capabilities of our employees, rather than on any individual patent or trademark. Therefore, we do not consider the expiration or loss of any single patent, trademark or intellectual property right, to be material to our business as a whole.