Your Patent Has Been Granted, Now What? "Part One"

[austinwalters]

Your Patent Has Been Granted, Now What? "Part One"

It took us 5 years to get our patent granted. I thought that was going to be our biggest challenge, ha, that's only the beginning!

Sell it, license it or enforce it through litigation.

Ether way a patent must go through a few steps to have value, aside from marketing analysis.

Validation: An independant firm can search for prior art work. This is useful if your patent is challange by a competitor or when you are enforcing your patent. It will show that the likelyhood of the invention hasn't been used publicly prior to your patent application? If it has, then your patent can be invalidated by the issuing patent office.

Yes, the patent office does this prior to issueing a patent, but they are not always as efficient your competitor can be.

Tech advisor: This is an expert who can evaluate the area a company may be infringing on your patent and what claims in your patent are being infringed.

Valuation: How much revenue is the infringing company receiving on the area they are infringing.

Of course all this takes capital to obtain these services, but the rewards can be much greater when in negotiations.

Any questions so far?

[JenniferB]

Interesting to hear your experiences with the patent process - what's Part 2?

[myownboss]

I'm also interested in Part 2. Thanks.

[InventorSpot]

If you are confused about what to do once your patent has been granted, you may want to read:

How Inventor's Go to Market - What to Do After Getting the Patent
http://www.americaninventorspot.com/_entrepreneur

Myra Per Lee is the inventor of various consumer products, including the Nukkles massage products you find all over the Bath and Body shops and Amazon.

[patentandtrademark]

you should stay away from firms that claim to "promote" or "develop" your invention. such firms are discussed at the uspto.gov website.

[saraloves]

what do you suggest patentandtrademark then if you don't have the skills yourself to properly sell a product and you want to look outside for help?

[InventorSpot]

I would suggest you find a reputable licensing company. They are out there but they are hard to find as all the ones raking in the money dominate the advertising. It is very hard for legitimate companies and businesses to get the word out to inventors.

We've had a heck of a time just trying to let inventors know we exist.

Some companies we have found so far include:

Big Idea and Evergreen IP.

You can read about Big Idea at
http://inventorspot.com/node/2942

We don't yet have a listing for Evergreen IP, but you can do a google search for them.

Basically, just be really skeptical and do your research when approaching a Invention Promotion or licensing firm.

Look for the major signals of a scam.
You can look at some the the resources we have been collecting at the inventor information section on scams, cons and frauds at
http://inventorspot.com/invention_cons_ ... d_problems

I'd focus on the various articles on how the scams work so you can watch out for them.