The short answer is: You.
No‐one else will have the passion, commitment or energy to do this for you. If you are not prepared to do the legwork, refocus on your day job.
Yes, there are companies that profess to "commercialise" your product, but 17 years on, we have yet to come across a single satisfied customer ‐ their stories are the same: pay ratchetting fees for evaluation, analysis, generation of marketing material, and a lot of postage; and receive glossy reports but nothing else.
Licensing your invention is difficult. Selling it is tougher still. To succeed, you need to mitigate the "risks" scaring off buyers / licensees. These risks include:
- Is your intellectual property valid?
- What scope of protection against competing products does your intellectual property offer?
- Will commercialisation of your product infringe third party intellectual property?
- What capital is required to make your product and bring it to market?
- What marketing cost is required?
- What is the market size?
- What is the product manufacturing cost?
- What sales price will the market bear?
Either answer all these questions (which is difficult), or apply an "evolutionary approach":
| Step |
"Risk" mitigated |
- Make the product (the volumes need not be high)
AIM: To eliminate risk. The goal during this phase is neither to minimise manufacturing cost nor to make profits
|
- Manufacturing cost (low volume)
- Validity of intellectual property (as, within 16 months, you should receive a patent search and examination report issued by a Patent Office with recognised search and examination capability)
- Scope of protection (as the patent examination report will comment on the validity of your patent claims)
|
- Conclude product supply agreements with potential licensees
Aim: To eliminate risks and increase customer sales to a level where Step 3 is a "no brainer"
|
- Marketing cost
- Market size
- Sales price
- Infringement, as time in the market will instil a sense of comfort
- Manufacturing capital cost (for increased capacity)
|
- In time, convert the supply agreement into a licence (i.e. when the licensee is prepared to assume responsibility to manufacture the product)
Aim: To generate historical sales data so that future sales can accurately be forecast
|
- Future sales
- Manufacturing cost (high volume)
|
- If you wish, convert the licence into a sale (when future sales can reliably be trended)
End goal attained!
|
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Tip: Consider bringing an "industry partner" on board. Not for money, but to provide: credibility; and early‐stage comfort that the issues of patent validity and infringement have been considered.
