I've been in situations where someone came up with something very interesting but there was the possibility of patent infringement due to some broad patent, so

I've been in situations where someone came up with something very interesting but there was the possibility of patent infringement due to some broad patent, so you had to either license the technology) or reimplement. No. If one can improve upon an existing patent, one can potentially collect royalties on that improvement. http://www.nolo.com/article.cfm/objectId/EFF260E8-76BA-438A-80A7546BC09CA8F0/catID/2D212B35-B211-4FD4-B46D84A00C15CEBF/310/101/134/ART/ http://www.nolo.com/article.cfm/objectId/EFF260E8-76BA-438A-... You can also get an improvement patent for an innovation that provides a new use for an existing invention. A party leveraging the improvement would then simply pay royalties to both the holders of the old broad, and the new less-broad, patents.