Clever is the one who has mastered the art of saving money, for that money could be spent on million other things.

Saving money is an art, of which a few are a pro while many fail at it. A bit of tweak here and there and an average person could save a dozen bucks every day.

A dozen bucks a day is no big deal. We agree.

But what if I tell you there are companies – with revenue in billions – using smart patent monetization strategies to save millions during the monetization phase – by not hiring a patent monetization company.

These clever patent monetization strategies are so good that we feel everyone deserves to know them.

Without further ado, tie up your laces and allow us to walk you through some of these amazing patent commercialization strategies that you too could implement at your organization.

Leverage knowledge of an inventor to monetize patent

A patent, as we know it, is a result of hard work by single/multiple inventors working on the technology. Years down the lane, when the technology is of no use to the organization, the best way to extract the maximum out of a patent asset is to monetize it, that is, either sell or license the particular IP to prospective clients.

Now, Instead of spending thousands of dollars to find out the prospective leads via patent monetization companies, the power of an inventor is leveraged.

For instance, any patent family that is up for monetization is sent back to the original team that worked on the technology resulting in that particular set of patents. The team is assigned with the task to find the leads that might be interested in buying or licensing those patent assets.

The logic behind the strategy is that no one would understand the invention better than those who created it. Since the creators have an in-depth knowledge of their invention, assigning them this task would result in finding better leads without spending any money to hire a patent monetization company. At least, they can provide a good idea of a lead set.

The internal team prepares a raw claim chart or overlapping document which is then used by IP counsels for further steps.

Though this approach just saves thousands of dollars worth of consultation fees for each patent, for an organization with a huge portfolio containing thousands of patents, it ends up saving thousands of dollars.

Use the power of external crowdsourcing

At times, the above monetization strategy will not work. For instance, the team that worked on a particular patent family has left the organization or transferred to different places. In that case, a company has the option to seek the help of an IP consultancy to evaluate its patents.

But, some really clever IP counsel use the power of external crowdsourcing – Article One Partners, Patexia, for example – to get claim charts at lower costs than a patent monetization firm.

An IP Counsel, however, has to be spent a lot of time to review the work to screen low-quality results. This monetization strategy, thus, shouldn’t be used when a tight deadline is there.

Utilizing contests as one of your patent monetization strategies

Do you know using contests as one of your patent monetization strategies can help monetize patents without spending any kind of resources on it? A lot of private and government organizations around the world have already employed this strategy.

The European Space Agency which has a lot of patents in its portfolio, for example, to monetize its patents holds a contest where the participants are asked to suggest ways for monetizing a given patent.

The winning team is given the chance to monetize patent the royalty costs earned via monetization are shared by both the ESA and the winning team. The winner gets a reward for its efforts while ESA earns monetization revenue without dropping a drop of sweat.

The revenue earned is again spent on research of which IP is a byproduct. The process keeps going one which is a win-win situation for everyone.

Use patent auction sites to sell the patents 

There are times when any of the above tactics won’t work. For instance, let us consider the example of an SME that wants to monetize its portfolio of 12 patents without spending money on portfolio analysis. Considering the part that they have a small team that needs to invest their time in R&D and no one qualified enough to conduct filtration and review, the first two methodologies won’t work. Neither would the third strategy work for obvious reasons.

What’s the way out?

Patent auction sites are the answer. Designed with a process that eases both buying and sale of patent assets, all an inventor needs to do is list his patents and wait for a potential buyer to make an offer.

Some of the online markets for IP trade include (but are not limited to)- PatentAuction, IdeaConnection, Ideabuyer.

What’s the catch in here?

Just one – along with yours, there are thousands of patents up for sale and the chances of a patent being sold are 1 in 2. Unlike the above patent commercialization strategies where the chances of finding a lead are great, for the given case, it’s on the buyer to find your patent and bid for it.

Having the half glass full perspective, if your patent is good enough and can serve a need for a potential buyer as a defensive weapon or an offensive one, consider it sold. In the end, the monetization potential of a patent depends on the quality of a patent and the claims covered in it.

Also, this strategy saves thousands of bucks spent on portfolio analysis. Money saved. Check.

Now that we have shown you some cool patent monetization strategies that companies around the globe use to save millions, here is your chance to leverage the ones that you feel are best and save money too.

After all, little drops of water make a mighty ocean.

Keep saving!

Authored by: Anjali Chopra, Sr. Research Analyst in collaboration with Vikas Jha, Manager, Solution.