A thicket literally is a thick, thorny hedge. As compared to a normal thin hedge, which a person might force their way through, the same person would probably become entangled and trapped in a thicket, emerging, if at all, with many bloody scratches. In patenting a company’s products, one objective is to develop a thicket or cluster of patents rather than a single pioneer patent, which standing alone is more vulnerable to a design around or invalidation. This often is done both by filing CIPs as the technology disclosed in the original pioneer application evolves and for numerous incremental patents that might prove essential or economically vital.