There are different options to sell inventions for profit. These include selling your patent rights outright, licensing or manufacturing and selling the invention on your own. When you choose to sell your patent rights, you are permanently transferring those rights to another entity for a fee.
This means you will have no claims on future royalties or other commercial opportunities related to that invention.
Instead, you could choose to license the rights to your invention and retain ownership. Licensing is basically renting out rights to use or sell the invention to another party. You can choose to limit the time frame of the licensing agreement, and decide between receiving a flat fee for the rights or a royalty per item sold, or some combination of these options. Royalties tend to be quite small in standard licensing agreements, often as low as 3% for new inventors.
Because marketing is one of the most difficult parts of the invention process, it’s not surprising that many inventors seek out help with invention selling. Acquiring a patent is only the beginning of the process when it comes to monetizing your invention.
In order to effectively sell your invention to industry or consumers, you will need to engage in some marketing to let people know about your new product.
As there is often more than one solution to a common problem, the inventor who gets their product to market first will gain market share. This is commonly referred to “first mover advantage.” This makes it very important to find the quickest and most cost effective way to market your new product.
Some options include exhibiting your product at trade shows, advertising in industry magazines, sending out flyers to retail buyers, doing an infomercial, building a website, or getting your product featured on a home shopping network.
