I. Introduction.

U.S. and worldwide patent filings are at all-time highs. About 620 thousand patent applications were filed in the United States in 2016, and about 2.9 million patent applications were filed worldwide in 2015 (the last year for which complete statistics are available).

It is estimated, however, that 90% or more of patented inventions are never commercialized, licensed or sold. There are three major reasons why inventions fail: (1) the invention has little or no inherent value; (2) the inventor or company lacks the ability to get the invention to market; and/or (3) intellectual property protection for the invention is narrow and others can simply circumvent it.