Monetizing Patents

This is the forth post in my series entitled “How To Make Money With A Patent: My Guide For Determining If You Should Patent Your Idea.” If you read my second post, you will know a few basics about patents that everyone should know. In my third post, I discussed a few of the preventable, organizational reasons that over 97% of patents are worthless. Now it’s time to discuss the less preventable reasons that over 97% of patents are worthless, even though about 80% of patents are filed by large, sophisticated businesses. Prospecting For Patent Gold Legend has it that a well-known chain of bookstores hired consultants to tell them how to maximize their profits. The consultants carefully analyzed all the sales and expenses of the bookstores and noticed a pattern. The bookstores were spending about 80% of their money and shelf space on books that were not selling. However, they made over 80% of their sales from the less than 20% of books that outsold all the rest, the “best sellers.” The advice of the consultants was that the bookstore should reduce their overhead by only stocking the bestsellers. The bookstores were stunned to say the least. How were…

Reasons Why Most Patents Are Worthless This is the third post in my series entitled “How To Make Money With A Patent: My Guide For Determining If You Should Patent Your Idea.” If you read my first post If you read my here, you will know that I suggest thinking about a patent as an investment. If you read my second post, you will know the seven basics that everyone should know about patents. Now it’s time to discuss why over 97% patents are worthless, and how you can avoid wasting your money on a worthless patent. Epic Fail Legend has it that a photocopier company had just come out with a new photocopier that was much better than any photocopier on the market. It would also be priced about the same as their old copier. They expected it to be an instant bestseller. This created a problem. The company had a large inventory of the old copier, which represented a substantial financial investment. However, the new copier was so much better than the old copier that management didn’t know how they were going to sell off their inventory of the old copier. Management’s solution was simple: they offered their…

This is the second post in my series entitled “How To Make Money With A Patent: My Guide For Determining If You Should Patent Your Idea.” Please click here to read the first post, and learn from Thomas Edison’s mistake. The Biggest Problem In Patent Law The biggest problem in patent law is not bad laws, bad court decisions, or bad science. The biggest problem in patent law is a failure to think. The critical question is: will this patent add value? If you can’t figure out how you are going to make money with a patent, then you probably won’t. To understand how to make money with a patent, you need to understand a few basics about patents. Seven Things That Everyone Should Know About Patents! You Or One Of Your Employees Must Have Invented Something To Apply For A Patent — You cannot patent the invention of another. You Must Pay To Obtain A Patent — The government does not notice your invention and award a patent to the inventor. Instead, an inventor or assignee (owner) must pay to draft and file a patent application. Further, the owner of the patent application may have to pay even more…

Save Time and Money By Learning From Thomas Edison’s Mistake! Thomas Edison is considered to be one of the greatest inventors of all time. He obtained over 1,000 U.S. Patents. However, he made a crucial mistake early in his career that nearly cost him everything! In 1868, Edison was just starting his career. He and his family were nearly broke. Thomas got a job at the Western Union Company. In his spare time, he invented and patented an electronic voting recorder that could quickly count the votes of a legislature. However, when he tried to sell his idea to the Massachusetts legislature, they were not interested. The legislators told him that they didn’t want to have their votes counted quickly because they wanted more time to change the minds of their fellow legislators. Thomas was stuck with a great invention that no one wanted to buy. But Thomas learned from his mistake. Thomas’s next great invention was for an improved stock ticker. These were devices that could read telegraph messages regarding stock prices and print them out as paper statements. Thomas had figured out a way to synchronize several stock ticker translations so that the potential customer could simultaneously receive…