How to Market Your Patent

Your concept may be novel and your invention may be exactly what everybody needs. However, unless you get your patented idea from the drawing board into your customer's hands, it won't do anyone any good. For inventors, marketing = manufacturing + distribution. Here's an overview of your options for getting your invention made and out the door.

Difficulty:

Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Patent Marketing Services
• Patent Software

1. Begin the manufacturing and distribution process as soon after filing your patent application as possible, even before the patent is issued.

2. Create an actual working model of your invention for demonstration to potential customers, manufacturers or distributors.

3. Decide how your invention is to be manufactured and distributed. Some options include the following: find someone else to manufacture and distribute it for you; use an invention broker to arrange the manufacturing and distribution; manufacture and distribute it yourself; sell your invention to a manufacturing/distribution company outright.

4. Persevere. Successfully getting an invention to market is usually a difficult and time-consuming process.

Tips & Warnings

• If you have filed a regular or provisional patent application (see "How to File for a Patent," under Related eHows), your invention enjoys "patent pending" status, which makes it very unlikely that the company will steal your idea.

• There are many factors to consider when deciding whether an invention is marketable, including its cost, size, effect on health and safety, time-saving aspects, ease of use, ease of production, durability, ease of repairs, and reliability, as well as the size of the potential market for the invention.

• If you want your invention to be successful, pursue commercial exploitation with all the energy that you can devote to it.

• Use an "inventor's notebook" to carefully document your idea, detailing how and when you came up with it. Also use it to describe your efforts to build and test your invention. Your notebook will be proof of your invention date if someone later claims that they invented it first.

• If you decide to enlist the services of an invention broker, make sure the professional has a successful track record. The broker is required to provide this information to you upon request. Also, as a general rule, choose invention brokers who work on a contingent-fee rather than a fixed-fee basis.

• Successfully marketing an invention requires a lot of know-how. This short checklist suggests a course of action, but to be successful, you'll have to educate yourself further about manufacturing and distributing your particular type of invention.

• This information is not intended as a substitute for personalized advice from a knowledgeable lawyer licensed to practice law in your state. For specific, up-to-date advice geared to your specific situation, consult an expert.