Most pharmaceutical drugs marketed world-wide are manufactured as crystalline forms. The same drug molecule can form different crystals (crystalline forms) at any time during development, manufacturing or processing. When new crystals are obtained it can be both a curse and a blessing to pharmaceutical companies – curse because the new crystals can exhibit different properties (such as solubility and stability) which can cause severe delays in development of the drug (or halt sales of the drug altogether); blessing because the new crystals can offer an opportunity for obtaining a pivotal intellectual property for the drug. In this seminar, the background and importance of crystalline forms will be discussed and how intellectual property is tied to these forms will be presented.