Over-patenting and the issuance of overly-broad nanotechnology "building block" patents by the United States Patent and Trademark Office have generated a densely enmeshed patent thicket that seems impossible to navigate. The nanotechnology "building block" patent thicket is preventing the commercialization of useful innovations. Collaborative effort to construct patent pools composed of the specific "building block" nanotechnology patents provides a feasible, promising, and practical means of untangling the complicated nanotechnology patent thicket.