Michael J. Foycik Jr., Esq.

Tweet

Attorney Advice on:  How to Make Money from a Patent
by Michael Foycik, registered US patent attorney
April 18, 2013   

I am often asked how to make money from a patent, and that is an excellent question.  There is the commonly known answer, and a lesser known but more important answer.  The common answer is, a patent can be licensed or assigned.  A license is similar to renting the patent, whereas an assignment is a sale of the patent.  A license can be sold to more than one company, for example.

The less commonly known answer, though, is far more important to inventors and businesses.  This answer concerns the patent application, which is not issued as a patent but instead is still pending.  Thus, it is known to provide “patent pending” status.  The question of how to make money from a patent then becomes one of how to make money from a patent pending.  This too is done by license or assignment.

Surprisingly, a pending patent application is easier to sell or market, and many companies prefer a pending patent.  The reason for this is simple, if considering a company's reasons for obtaining a patent.  A company makes the most profits from having a family of related products rather than a single product.  A pending patent application give its own the right to file related patent applications for related products, usually through continuation-in-part applications, and so can end up protecting whole families of related products.  To learn more about how to make money from a patent, I can recommend further reading on this subject on articles such as:  making a prototype; attracting investors; selling to retailers; using distributors; and consignment sales.

The author is a patent attorney with over 28 years experience in patents and trademarks. For further information, please email at IP1lwyr@gmail.com, or call at 877-654-3336.