Translation of "Patent thicket" in German

Today, many in the computer industry worry that such a patent thicket may impede software development.

An increasingly dense “patent thicket” in a world of products requiring thousands of patents has sometimes stifled innovation, with more spent on lawyers than on researchers in some cases.

The ‘patent thicket’ ties up knowledge in a web of overlapping patents, so that it is very difficult to access, and very expensive to use.

Rapidly growing patent thickets threaten business innovation.

Patent thickets may turn out to be a problem for bigger companies with broad patent portfolios, too.

The expert group explored patent thickets as part of the broader discussion on the management of innovation and technological complexity.

Moreover, so-called “patent thickets” – the fear that some advance will tread on pre-existing patents, of which the innovator may not even be aware – may also discourage innovation.

Filing numerous patent applications for the same medicine (forming so called "patent clusters" or "patent thickets") is a common practice.

With the same token no negative connotations, in particular with regard to terms like "primary"/"secondary" patents, "defensive patenting" and "patent clusters" or "patent thickets" is intended, as applications are to be evaluated on the basis on the statutory patentability criteria (i.e. novelty, inventive step and industrial applicability), and this is irrespective of the stage in which applications are made, the intent of applicants in applying for patent rights or how the patents are addressed in the company's internal strategy documents.

Or, as Tomoko Miyamoto, Senior Counsellor of the Patent Law Section in the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) said in her presentation: Patent thickets and patent hold-ups may arise from certain forms of legitimate exploitation of the exclusive rights conferred by patents.

It concludes that measures to improve patent quality will help to reduce the complexity of the system and thus deal with patent thickets indirectly.

Inventors and companies rely on the EPO to ensure that their innovations obtain the best possible protection, while markets need to be able to form a correct assessment of granted intellectual property rights and not run the risk of becoming ensnared in patent thickets.

Inventors and companies depend on the Patent Office to secure their innovations in the best possible way, whereas the market is reliant on correct and thorough assessments of intellectual property rights as well as protection from so-called "patent thickets".

International patent experts met at the third workshop to improve understanding of patent thickets and to look at the phenomenon from the perspective of different industries.

In its third study - on patent thickets - the Board clearly states that it does not regard such "thickets" as a root cause of problems in the patent system.

The role and structure of fees, the importance of patent quality and challenges to the functioning of the patent system from overlapping sets of patent rights, so-called patent thickets: these are the issues to be addressed by the Economic and Scientific Advisory Board of the EPO.

This strategic importance is often no longer held by individual patent rights, but rather by many interlinked patents, which are called patent thickets.

Along with this statement, the ESAB has also published the reports of three workshops it conducted in 2012, namely on patent quality, the role of fees, and patent thickets.

The role and structure of fees, the importance of patent quality and challenges to the functioning of the patent system from overlapping sets of patent rights, so-called patent thickets: these are the issues to be addressed by the Economic and Scientific Advisory Board of the European Patent Office.

In other words: Conferring these exclusive rights is the intended function of the patent system, and legitimate usage of these rights brings about consequences of patent thickets and patent hold-ups.