Meanings
nounpatent pool (plural patent pools)
plural patent pools
- lawA consortium of companies which agree to crosslicense patents relating to a particular technology, often to avoid the problem of blocking patents.
A patent pool can be an effective way of resolving conflicting rights.
2002, Mark A. Glick, Lara A. Reymann, Richard Hoffman, Intellectual Property Damages, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 2131 more example
A patent pool is an arrangement in which patents of different firms that are relevant to a certain standard or technology are licensed as a package, and the resulting royalties are distributed among those firms (called the licensors).
2001, Rudi Bekkers, Mobile Telecommunications Standards: GSM, UMTS, TETRA, and ERMES, Artech House, →ISBN, page 250
Cite this entry
APA
patent pool. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/patent%20pool
MLA
“patent pool.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/patent%20pool. Accessed November 4, 2026.
Chicago
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “patent pool,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/patent%20pool.
Source: patent pool on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.