You can make money licensing all types of intellectual property. This includes copyrights, trademarks, patents, and trade secrets. How you make money with it depends on what you do to bring it into the market.
For example, a good strategy for a start-up company is licensing in rights to a market-ready IP. You then focus your resources creating your business model, producing and marketing it, either as a product or service. You get into the market faster, with lower risk and cost.
A second strategy is a master licensing deal where you acquire the master licensing rights and sub-license it to other companies. You make money using the IP and by re-licensing or licensing it out to other product categories. You make money both from direct sales and from the royalties paid by sub-licensees.
If you come across inventors or companies that are not familiar with licensing and want to use it to make money with their IP, then a third option is to act as an intermediary, such as a licensing agent or patent broker. You find the licensing partners and get paid for putting the deal together.
As far as the kinds of intellectual property, it’s an unlimited resource available from every type of industry, from basic consumer products to very complex nanotechnologies and everything in between. It’s really a question of your experience, ability and resources.
These are just a couple of ways you can make money licensing any type of intellectual property. It requires getting familiar with licensing and the IP in one or more industries. And of course, learning the basics of what’s involved in licensing. If you’re interested in doing this, I urge you to get my Licensing Mastery Audio Training Program, because that’s exactly what it will teach you. You’ll learn the basics of licensing and how to put these deals together, whether it’s licensing in rights or working with an IP owner and licensing out their rights.
