Surprisingly, 50.5% of companies that performed or funded R&D found utility patents “not at all valuable.” Some observers believe that if businesses are not filling patents, they are not disclosing inventions, which is harmful to innovation.

“This may be a result of a perception that the value of U.S. utility patents has diminished in recent years to due to erosion of patentability standards, coupled with increased cost and risk of enforcement,” James Pooley told IP CloseUp. Pooley is a trade secret expert and former Deputy Director General of WIPO and advisory board member of the Center for Intellectual Property Understanding.