Patent thicket

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A patent thicket is "a dense web of overlapping intellectual property rights that a company must hack its way through in order to actually commercialize new technology."

The expression may come from SCM Corp. v. Xerox Corp. patent litigation case in the 1970s, wherein SCM's central charge had been that Xerox constructed a "patent thicket" to prevent competition.

Patent thickets are used to defend against competitors designing around a single patent. This is particularly true in the electronics industry.

A "patent thicket" was also defined as "the utilization by a patent owner of some patents but not others, or the failure to license others for the purpose of obtaining or maintaining an illegal monopoly."

Patent thickets are also sometimes called "patent floods".

Patent thicket

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See also