25. Bristol-Myers Squibb

Patent value: 16,295

Though Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) is one of the little companies in Big Pharma—Pfizer (PFE) and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) had more than twice its 2008 revenue of $20.6 billion—the drug and nutritional products maker has high-value patents in biomedical and organic compounds. It is particularly deep in cancer-fighting medicines, some of which it's added through acquisitions.