Could Inventors Be Lucrative Clients? If So, What Services Or Products Can You Offer Them?

According to the United States Patent And Trademark Office (USPTO): over 600,000 patent applications have been filed for the years leading up to 2019. This figure does not even take into account the substantially higher number of patent applications filed on a global basis.

According to World International Property Organization (WIPO): there are over 3.3 million patent applications filed in 2018. We must also consider that patent applicants don’t usually file in one country alone. Thus, a patent applicant could be a very lucrative client.

Although patent filing services are very important to inventors, there are other equally important services you can offer to an inventor. For example, most inventors also plan to monetize their invention by licensing or manufacturing the invention themselves.

In these cases, you can offer licensing and/or manufacturing services. Take note that many inventors are mostly familiar with the creation side of their invention and are not that familiar with the business aspect of their invention. Here are some services/products you can offer:

Firstly, not everyone can offer this service. Only licensed legal professionals can offer this service. But if you do happen to offer such service, it could be very lucrative. For example, patent law firms in the US usually charge between US$ 8,000 to US$ 12,000/per filing.

These costs are for simple mechanical inventions. The more “patent claims” a patent application has the more expensive it gets. If you must know, the purpose of the claims is to define which subject-matter is protected by the patent (or sought to be protected by the patent application). This is why it is so important.

An inventor would also most likely need a law firm during licensing negotiations. This is because most inventors are not an expert on the legal intricacies of licensing contracts.

Inventors would also need assistance during patent infringement cases. These types of cases can be a financial problem for inventors but they can be very lucrative for the law firms that represent them. These cases usually cost millions of dollars in legal costs during their entirety.

If you analyze that patent filing cost between US$ 8,000 to US$ 12,000 and there are more than 600,000 patent filings a year in the US, this means that the patent filing industry is worth between US$ 4.8 billion to US$ 7.2 billion. This is a very large and profitable industry indeed!

After an inventor courtesy of their patent law firm has filed for a patent application. The inventor is now free to monetize their invention without the worry that someone else would first claim ownership of their invention.

The inventor can either decide to manufacture their invention themselves and sell it to consumers or license their invention to another party. This party would then manufacture the invention themselves and sell it to their customers while giving the inventor a share of the profits.

If the inventor decides that they would take the licensing route, they’ll probably need the help of licensing companies who would help them find companies that would license their invention.

For example, I know of a company in the US who coaches and assists inventors in licensing their inventions. The company’s name is InventRight and they are an active proponent of licensing versus manufacturing.

I suggest you study their website and watch their YouTube videos just so you get a good understanding of what a licensing services company does. This company has been around for decades.

In case the inventor takes on the manufacturing route as a way to monetize their invention, you can offer Contract Manufacturing Services to them instead. There are a lot of companies who are already offering this services.

Contract manufacturing is when one company enters into an agreement with another to produce components or products over a specific timeframe.. This means that the inventor or their company hires another company to manufacture their invention.

The size of the contract manufacturing services company is not that important. For example, in the garment or fashion industry, many fashion companies in Europe design their clothes in Europe but their clothes are mass manufactured in places such as Asia.

The contract manufacturing services company can be any size. It could be a company with hundreds and even thousands of workers up to a simple company with only about a dozen workers at most.

This means that you can offer this service at any stage. You can even use your own home like your garage space as a manufacturing area in the beginning. Later on as your business grows, you can hire more workers, expand to larger manufacturing facilities and buy more equipment.

While there are people who are good at idealizing their invention from concept to a full-fledged blueprint, there is also the high chance that they are not particularly skilled in making their invention a physical reality.

For example, there are invention prototypes that are well suited for 3D printing but even today, 3D printers are still a niche product and not many can operate and maintain them. Add to this that 3D printers can be expensive which makes them unaffordable to many.

Another thing to consider is that there are invention prototypes that can only be built with machining tools like lathe machines, drilling machines and so on. Not many have the skills to operate these machines. They are also expensive to begin with.

As you can see, there is a huge barrier regarding skills and costs in obtaining and operating invention prototyping machines. If you have such machines, this could be a chance for you to offer your skills and machines to inventors.

Do take note also that invention prototypes do not work or are not perfect at the first try. The inventor might have to create a lot of prototypes before they can perfect their invention. The more an inventor prototypes, the more money you can potentially earn from them.

Many patent applications require illustrations for the patent being applied. This is a specialized skill that is learned and arguably perfected only after years of actual practice. This is the reason why for example patent firms hire or contract such skilled illustration drafters.

It is to be noted that in many freelancing sites like UpWork and Fiverr this service is already being offered by many freelancers of varying skills. So, if ever you plan to offer this service in a freelancing platform, expect heavy competition.

But there are other drafting services besides patent illustrations drafting services. For example, an inventor or their company might need illustrations of their invention to represent actual commercial models.

There are also illustrations that are used for business and client presentations. These could take the form of simple sketches, CAD drawings and up to animated illustrations. Don’t also forget that the inventor and their company is now a legal business entity.

This means that there could be other drafting services you can offer. These could be in the form of the company’s logo up to the blueprints of the layout of the company and its manufacturing facilities.

An inventor and their company would also need a lot of help in not only selling their invention. They also need to sell/promote themselves to the public, customers, investors, partners and other related parties.

They need help in creating their presentation documents to these parties previously mentioned. This could be as simple as creating the presentation documents up to actual coaching on how, when and where to present.

A lot of inventors and their company also need help advertising their product. This is where SEO experts, social media influencers, AD agencies and platforms and the likes come in. These entities are the experts in advertising.

But anyone can be an SEO expert and a social media influencer given a lot of luck and time. There are even teenagers and even very young kids becoming multimillionaires by just becoming social media influencers.

This SEO expert, social media influencer, online ad expert could be you. These jobs don’t even require a college degree and can even be done right in the comfort of one’s home. This is the reason why there are many people dipping their foot in these fields.

It is to be noted that most inventors don’t profit from their inventions. In fact, many of them even lose a considerable amount of money trying to monetize their invention. In the US alone, inventors spend several billions of dollars each year trying to monetize their invention.

But despite this gloomy news for inventors, the fact is that inventors could be a profitable client to many companies offering inventing products and services. Just like the California Gold Rush, it’s not the gold prospectors who really became rich, its the businesses selling picks and shovels to them.