A Miami Patent Attorney Explains How to Make Money With Ideas in South Florida

00:07

Today we'll be covering a lot of questions inventors have relating to making money with their ideas. Let me start with a question every inventor has, how can I make money with my idea?

00:18

Well, the first thing you need to ask yourself is what makes it your idea. You may have thought of it first. But that does not give you ownership over the idea. Just like you have a title to a car, the title denotes ownership, you'll have a deed to a, maybe a lot or a property piece of real estate. The deed provides legal ownership. Coming up with an idea first does not provide you with any legal rights to that idea.

00:54

But how was this done? Well,

00:56

you obtain a cert ownership to an idea by filing for a patent. When you file a patent, you are defining the scope of what you consider to be your invention. Going back to the real estate example, when it comes to a piece of real property, your neighbor knows exactly how close to the property line he can build his fence. But there are no fences around ideas. And the way you define how broad your idea is, is by filing a patent document and you have the claim section where a patent attorney carefully defines the scope of your idea, and that it's critical to file for a patent if you want ownership on a new concept.

01:43

Okay, so once you get the patent on file, how does having the patent make money for you?

01:49

Well, for one thing, you can sell the idea you can sell the idea outright for a lump sum company will come forward, they'll pay you for the patent. And then what they end up making from the concept is none of your business, it's none of your concern. They've bought the rights to the patent. And they can go forward and make $100 million. And you're only entitled to what you've agreed to in in in the sales agreement. The other way is that you can license rights to the idea. And when you license rights, you are giving permission to the company to a company to use your concept. And in exchange for using your concept, they will typically agree to pay you a percentage of each sale. So a

02:39

patent can be sold and to be licensed. Is it just like other property
02:45

A patent is is a valuable asset. In fact, for many businesses, the patent is more valuable than the real estate or the equipment or other assets that the business has. Like other property patents can be bought, they can be sold, they can be leased or licensed. Patents, in fact, are often used as collateral for a loan. Patent can just like other property, a patent can be inherited.

03:16

But one of the inventor doesn't want to sell the idea. But once a form of business themselves.

03:22

Well, this is often done as well. Many times I've had clients that with a new idea, and they want to maintain control of the idea. They don't want to simply sell the concept to another company. And they certainly don't want to license the idea and make a percentage of sales. They want to become the manufacturer themselves. And the patent helps in this regard in that it provides the inventor, the ability to prevent anybody else from making using selling and even importing the competing product in the United States. And of course you can file for patents worldwide as well. Without the patent, especially an individual or a small business would not be able to stop competitors from entering the market. Your viewers would like I do regularly post to a blog, Florida IP blog.com And you can certainly contact me that way as well. I'd be happy to answer anything that we haven't covered.