After doing a bit of research on the different types of patents that are available, and what it would cost to get patents in multiple countries, it is a mystery to me why anyone would bother with getting specifically and only a United States patent.
Most patents are only good for the specific country where it is issued, and this is the case with US patent. It does nothing to protect you from people using your patented technology in other countries. It only provides defense for the United States.
However the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) provides a way to do a single filing that applies in a huge number of 152 countries (currently) simultaneously:
This then leaves me with the question of why most anyone would bother at all with merely filing a US patent. It seems to have no purpose for general filing, and should only be done in very specific and uncommon conditions.... which I can’t even come up with, if a WIPO multi-country filing can already fulfill those functions.