[1] Perfume formulations cannot be protected by patents, and with the aid of modern analytic techniques, such as gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), it is relatively easy to analyze their composition, and thus to imitate a fragrance composed only of commercially available perfumery raw materials, such as essential oils and synthetic odorants sold on the market.
The use of captives thus offers the respective fragrance company, at least for a limited time, a commercial advantage over their competitors.
When the patent that covers the captive is close to expire, the material is generally released to the market.
As the discovery and introduction of new odorants is very costly, only the big fragrance companies, such as Givaudan, Firmenich, IFF, Symrise and Takasago, can afford this strategy.
Important examples of now released captives include Hedione in »Eau Sauvage« (C. Dior, 1966), Moxalone in »CK Be« (Calvin Klein, 1996),[2] and Dynascone in »Cool Water« (Davidoff, 1988).