Patent Thicket is overlapping web of patents on same product

Q.  What is a ‘patent thicket’?
- Published on 29 Feb 16

a. A company having more patents
b. Overlapping of patents
c. A business area having more potential for innovations
d. Mechanism to give up patent rights.

ANSWER: Overlapping of patents
 
  • A patent thicket carries a negative connotation and is best described as a dense web of overlapping intellectual property rights that a company must hack its way through in order to actually commercialize new technology.
  • Patent thickets are used to defend against competitors designing around a single patent. Say a company designs a product. Others may patent the same product with minor tweaks. To avoid this, the product is under a patent thicket i.e. an overlapping web of patents.
  • Patent thickets are also sometimes called patent floods or patent clusters.

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