As you can imagine, these conferences are filled with great unusual statistics; one of which is the number of US patents that are currently “in force.” In other words, of the millions of US patents that have issued, how many are currently enforceable? (i.e. in term and have had the requisite maintenance fees paid). Today I learned that the number of US patents in force is approximately 1.7 million! Thus, you only have to worry about infringing a possible 1.7 patents.