Being in the field of IPR Registration, one question that we regularly get is “If you can sell a patent?”. It’s easy to simply get caught up in the excitement of making something out of absolutely nothing, and it’s tempting to believe that you’ve patented an original invention once someone will automatically pay over millions of dollars to bring it to the market for you. But it’s hardly ever the case. We believe that a new inventor must understand how to sell a patent from the start to finish, from the very onset of their creative undertakings. This should invest in adopting a proper frame of mind that is simply conducive to generate the most marketable idea which is possible. In this article you will come across a few career-boosting concepts from a new investor must learn, so they don’t have to learn it in a hard way.
Avoid the silo mentality
Before you file your provisional patent, it’s important to maintain the novelty for your idea by avoiding the disclosure, which is describing your invention in the form of a print or online. At the time, you should thoroughly research whether someone had already been executed your idea through the Trademark Office. By investigating the existing patents which are simply to your invention, you may uncover the ways to refine and improve your own technology before applying for your patent. Once your idea gets patented, you must end your creative silo and solicit as much feedback as possible. A lesson you must learn is ‘how not to be selfish about your invention’. Many engineers believe that they understand and know what people want, so accordingly, they try to build a revolutionary product in their basement, but the sad part is some of them end up fading away without making it to the market. In some cases, inventors discover a product just for the desire of obtaining that particular product or feature, this simply doesn’t mean that everyone else in the world desires the product too.
Prototype as soon as possible
Selling a patent is generally not much feasible unless and until you have actually built an actual prototype. Prototyping and asking people for feedback which is often the only way to impose your idea into the marketable product that generates the excitement, and this attracts the attention of the investors. Depending on your invention, you might begin with a “look-alike” prototype – which will simulate the feel and aesthetics of the design or a “work alike” prototype which is ready for tests and other functionality. Eventually, you’ll merge both the prototypes into a production-quality prototype, but it is often not without the hundreds of the iterations. You may achieve a compelling or marketable to the prototype before you arrive a production-quality prototype. Once you arrive something that helps in investors which is quicker and easier to imagine your invention in the hands of the consumers, you stand a much better chance of selling your patent. The value of a prototyped idea which should be very self-evidential. It doesn’t require the investors to read through the patent and use their own self-image.
Abandon the pursuit of perfection
One of the biggest issues among the inventors is that they are too obsessed with achieving perfectly before trying to sell their own products. There is nothing such as a perfect invention. There is the only improvement, which has been achieved through constantly iterating and seeking various feedback on each iteration. In fact, culture and technology are rapidly evolving, even if you could achieve a perfect version of your product, it may not fit perfectly for the users’ needs and the market’s demands for very long. Inventors must simply understand that they will never “get it right the very first time.” As soon as you send your idea into the real world it doesn’t matter how many hundreds of prototypes. This is all part of a learning curve. Just preserve your next iteration, which will come soon enough. Inventors must focus on finding the appropriate cadence for the iteration, which would depend on each individual team and the technology they offer. Some industrial juggernauts may be able to iterate at very rapid speed, due to their existing large teams that are constantly creating new prototypes. The smaller teams might take a little longer. But it is mandatory to create a prototype, take it to the market for 30 days, identify the flaws in the invention and then implement a new round of changes before deploying.
Remember that inventors have infinite ideas
It will be hard to give up on a patent that ultimately becomes marketable. But the earlier you realize and accept that you should pull the legs of the gas, the easier it will be. Having spent several years of your lives and thousands of rupees for working on an invention, it will be difficult on your part to eventually shut down the process. Many inventors consider their inventions as their babies and giving up on the idea could feel simpler to stop the heart of a baby. Many inventors, that too, newcomers, take too long to abandon the idea because they fear their first idea is the only idea they will ever get. So, they simply cling on to it and resist testing it in the market because they are scared to find out that their invention really isn’t going to bring in any notable difference to the market. They keep their idea locked down because they see it as something too precious. But this isn’t how the creative mind must work. In reality, even million-dollar ideas are a dime a dozen. If you find your product weak in some area, then you simply have to look for another idea or improve on its weakness. In a way, ideas can’t be compared to babies as you may have more than one, or two, or ten of them but you can’t love them all. The best way to conceive that one idea that will change the world is to generate as many ideas as possible and slowly eliminate the ideas that simply aren’t worth your time.
