patent thicket; patent cluster
Technical term in intellectual property law referring to a dense web of overlapping patents held by different entities, making it difficult to commercialize a new product without licensing many patents.
Patent thickets are a problem in the smartphone industry.
Developing new technology requires navigating around patent thickets.
Compound of 特許 (tokkyo, 'patent') and 群 (gun, 'group, cluster'). The term is a direct translation of the English legal term 'patent thicket'.