> TE Home
> About TE
> Contact Us
> Editorial Info
> E-Mail Update
> IEEE-USA

04.07

New Ways to Leverage Your Intellectual Property

By John Platt

You've just landed your first patents or copyrights — congratulations!

So... what's next?

Intellectual Property (IP), including patents, copyrights and trademarks, is often the lifeblood of today's top organizations. For example, IBM Corporation has one of the most vigorous patent filing operations in the world, and maintains an active license program for its 40,000-plus active patents. Someone else might ultimately make the product, but as the patent holder, IBM continues to make money.

But you don't need to be a huge company to take advantage of the benefits of intellectual property ownership. Your own IP may not be hard goods that you can sell, but they are investments. With the right planning and development, small businesses, sole proprietorships, and even individuals can earn money for years based on their initial investments of time, creativity and expertise.

Traditionally, there are several ways to make money from IP: exploit it (in other words, create a product and sell it yourself), license it to someone else (you'll earn a royalty on each sale), or sell full ownership of your IP to a third party (usually for a one-time fee). But beyond those traditional avenues, there are quite a few other ways you can earn more money and other rewards from your IP with little to no extra effort.

Here are five ways you can take your intellectual property, point it in a slightly different direction, and earn more from it — all while investing less effort than you would in creating something new.

1. Document and share your unique research.

Your IP started somewhere. What research did you conduct? What processes and procedures did you have in place? What made it possible for you to create this IP
successfully?

Once you've answered these questions, ask yourself one more: Can you write articles on the subject? Trade magazines in your industry want to hear your ideas, and can often pay well for you to tell your story.

Another route is to turn your story into an e-book, which you could sell online. Marketing guru Bob Bly calls this an "annuity business," a side business which can continue to net profits for a very long time (all without cannibalizing on your original activities).

Of course, if you have a good enough story to tell, you could write a full-fledged book and try to get it published. But that's a subject for another day.

2. Look at it askew.

Sometimes all it takes to create new IP is to take your existing IP and change it ever so
slightly.

With patents, you can often make subtle (or not-so-subtle) improvements to your original and file an Improvement Patent, which builds upon your previous invention and turns it into something new. This new patent is now ripe for its own exploitation or licensing.

When it comes to your copyrighted material such as articles, think about how you can refocus (or re-slant) your original thesis and come at the subject from another angle.

Journalists do this all the time. They might interview a subject one time but write about it several different ways, spinning their articles for different audiences at two or three or ten different publishers. The same research is then earning several times as much as it would have if the author had only written a single article.

3. Talk about it.

You did the research, and you created the IP, which means that you know the subject better than anyone else. So talk about it. Conferences, local technical meetings, professional societies, and other events are always looking for interesting and effective speakers. Speaking engagements are a great way to engage your audience, share your success, brand your company, and earn speaking fees at the same time.

Even if you don't get paid much for the speaking engagement (and chances are you probably won't), speaking engagements are great opportunities to meet potential customers, to expand your contacts, to give back to your industry, or to reach the press with your unique story.

Speaking of which...

4. Use the media.

You know what you're talking about better than anyone else, right? So if anyone wants to know more, who else would they come to?

Reporters are always looking for interesting people to profile, or for experts to contact when they are writing about a specific subject. By establishing yourself as an expert source, the next person they interview could be you. Sure, you won't be paid actual money if you're interviewed or if someone else writes about you, but good publicity for you and your company just may be payment enough.

5. Raise your rates.

You created important IP ... you're an expert ... you're talking to the press ... so why are you still getting paid the same amount as you did before you achieved something big? It may be time to ask the boss for a raise, or, if you are your own boss, to start charging your clients more or to raise the price on your products. This isn't the time to be greedy, but it just might be the right time to start asking for what you are worth, and you are worth more than you were before you created that new intellectual property.

So there you go! Five strategies for making your IP earn more. Give them a shot — and then get out there  and create something even newer.

John R. Platt is a freelance writer with more than 2,000 copyrights to his name. He
frequently speaks on writing-related topics around the country. John can be found online at www.john-platt.com. Comments may be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org.