We’ve built a global system where patents are treated as the scorecard of innovation, more filings, more prestige. But the reality? ~99% of patents contribute nothing to human progress. Only ~1% contain the breakthroughs that could genuinely move civilization forward. In universities, just 3–5% of patents ever get licensed. That means over 95% never leave the shelf, yet filing volumes keep rising because grants, rankings, and KPIs demand it. Impact becomes secondary. The certificate becomes the goal.

Corporates also guard huge “patent thickets” not to advance society, but to block competition and protect market share. Incremental tweaks get rewarded, bold ideas get buried. And globally, high-income nations dominate commercialization while emerging countries drown in filings that rarely translate into real applications. Today, where you file matters more than what you file.

The Real Patent Map
~90% → Never applied, never used.
~9% → Commercially useful, mostly short-term.
~1% → Civilization-shifting breakthroughs.

Clean energy. Robotics and autonomous systems. Advanced materials. Regenerative medicine. Climate resilience. Life extension. Interplanetary survival. All hiding in that 1%, mostly trapped, underfunded, or forgotten.

A New Metric For A New Era
Instead of counting patents filed, what if we measured,
Patents Deployed + Value Created + Lives Improved + Civilization Uplifted

The real question for this decade is not how much IP we can accumulate, but “What will it take to invent and unlock that 1%?”