How Much Can You Sell a Patent For?

Have you asked yourself, "how much can you sell a patent for?" The value depends on a few factors. To sell a patent, the patent holder must determine the quality of the underlying invention outlined in the patent. A patent is a vital doc that grants possession to an invention. To gain revenue out of your concept, you will need to promote the patent, license utilization rights, or market the product yourself.

Companies interested in buying the patent must evaluate whether the patent is well constructed. Companies need to figure out how to extract value from the patent.

Selling Your Patent: How Much You Can Expect

Let’s say that you’re an inventor with an issued patent for a product and have been able to sell that product in at least one well-known retail outlet. There is a chance that you could attract corporate interest. Typically, vendors will relay new products they see in retail locations up the ladder until it reaches the right person. When that happens, a corporation may make an offer for your patent which could range drastically. In some cases you may be offered $50,000 and others it could be in the millions.

The other alternative is to simply market your patent directly to corporations. This is an effective strategy for selling your patent, but not necessarily for getting the highest price possible. In the first example, the corporation reached out to you to buy your patent, in this alternative you are reaching out to the corporation to sell. As you might imagine, you’ll attract a much lower price if it’s obvious that you want to sell. An inventor taking this approach to patent selling may attract $5,000 to $35,000 for their patent, or more if it’s a valuable patent.

Some inventors hire a marketing service to try to interest companies; such marketing companies usually keep statistics on their success rate. If the company that is interested in your patent makes a similar product to yours, there is an opportunity to license the patent out rather than sell the rights completely.

The cash earned from promoting a patent will not be substantial unless the product has been in the marketplace for a very long time. The patent purchaser often will not need to spend as much for an unproven product that may not generate an enormous income.

Whenever you promote a patent, you might expect a fast payoff for your concept. Hundreds of innovations are patented annually; however only a fraction actually generate substantial, if any, income. Promoting a patent permits the inventor to generate earnings that may assist in making payments or financing different promising concepts. Promoting a patent outright additionally eliminates the large monetary expense required to start up an enterprise based mostly on a brand new product. Though a fast, hassle-free payoff sounds attractive, promoting the patent gives the inventor the best path for future income from his or her creation.

Licensing Rights

Licensing the rights to make, use, or promote your product is often the most worthwhile route for inventors. As a patent holder, you keep possession of the invention and earn royalty funds on future gross sales of the product. You possibly can grant a unique license to one firm or a number of firms. The licensee assumes legal responsibility for any product mishaps. However, licensing usage rights does not assure the inventor of economic gain.

How Much Is Your Idea Worth? The Patent Marketing Process

Unique and compelling business ideas can garner millions in the right hands, but the risk of not succeeding becomes much higher if you’re unable to patent your business idea.

For example, Pfizer is a pharmaceutical company that owns the rights to the most valuable patent in history. With a valid patent, Pfizer was able to monetize a drug, Lipitor, to bring in more than $130 billion. Because patents have an expiration (either 14 or 20 years), companies have a short window to turn as much of a profit as possible. If you’re an inventor or company looking to monopolize an idea or concept to earn the highest revenue possible, you need a patent.

Selling or Licensing Options

  • Put together formal letters and high quality brochures to showcase your invention.
  • Make a listing of producers and potential customers for your invention.
  • Attend commerce or invention conferences, where you'll encounter firms or people interested in your product.
  • Purchase space for new product bulletins in commerce publications and inventors' magazines to generate potential patent consumers.
  • Finance your invention by soliciting companions to supply capital required to launch the product.

If you need help with selling a patent, you can post your legal need (or post your job) on UpCounsel’s marketplace. UpCounsel accepts only the top 5 percent of lawyers to its site. Lawyers on UpCounsel average 14 years of legal experience, including work with or on behalf of companies like Google, Menlo Ventures, and Airbnb.