Prepare for Commercialization

Whether you choose the licensing approach to commercialization or venturing, there are a few common steps that must be completed.

You should obtain strong legal protection to your innovation — e.g., a patent or other appropriate form of intellectual-property protection. There are two reasons why a good intellectual-property position is important:
- When you secure intellectual-property rights, you're actually protecting the significant investment you have already made in the technology's research and development. Failure to obtain these rights — or failure to obtain the proper coverage of your rights — opens the door for others to take advantage of what you have worked so hard to develop.
- No matter how good your idea or technology is, no one is going to pay you for something you don't own. Securing the intellectual-property rights to your technology through a patent or other mechanism establishes your ownership and gives you something to actually sell.
You should have a reliable working model or engineering prototype. Having proof that your technology can perform according to your claims is not required from a regulatory perspective. Practically speaking, however, it is essential to gaining the interest of a licensee, a potential investor, or anyone else.
Another benefit of developing a model or prototype is the knowledge you will gain regarding the cost to produce the technology. This knowledge only adds to your credibility as a serious technology developer and further improves your negotiating position with prospective licensees, investors, and others.
Before going too far down your chosen commercialization path, you need to objectively determine your technology's market potential. Collecting market data and determining a production price may seem daunting, but without this information, you will not know what your innovation might be worth to a licensee or whether it is reasonable to think you can market it yourself.
Finally, you should have a written plan for your commercialization strategy. This plan is not a business plan. A business plan and commercialization plan may track each other closely if the business is based substantially on the successful commercialization of a single technology. A commercialization plan, however, focuses specifically on the what, how, who, where, and when of commercializing your technology. As such, it will be different from the business plan you develop to guide the operation of your business.

Check out this article by Dr. Robert Hunter, a registered patent agent, for an in-depth analysis of commercialization options for new inventions.