Let’s look at a licensing situation set up two different ways. The purpose is to illustrate pathway dependence of an offer.
Let’s say we have an invention with an associated patent right and a university laboratory willing to engage industry on the matter. Let’s say, further, that in this university, folks are fine with non-exclusive licensing. Okay, it’s a counterfactual, but work with me here.
We have two primary intangible assets to play with: a patent right and the interaction between the lab and industry. Let’s call this interaction a “workshop”. It could be a “collaboration” or a “consortium” or a “newsletter subscription” or an “affiliates program”.
In a conventional IP-first approach, one could offer companies a non-exclusive license for some ridiculously modest amount, like $2K, with the added bonus that the lab will throw in a free workshop to explain how the invention works.
In an integrated IP/NIPIA approach, however, one might do things in reverse: come to our workshop for $2K and we’ll throw in a no-charge license to our patent.
It’s the same fundamental deal: a license and a workshop. But it’s really very different in how it lands in a company. In the first instance, the offer of a license is an implied threat and goes to the legal department. Do we need this license? Can we design around it? If we pay up are we heading down an evil road?
In the second instance, the offer for a workshop lands in professional communications and development. Do we want to know this stuff or stay ignorant? That there’s a patent license thrown in is easy. No commitments on that front.
Let’s say 50 people will come to a workshop at $2K. That’s like $100K. Is it easier to get 50 people to attend a workshop for a modest fee and throw in a patent license or two, or get 50 companies to take a license just in case they might need it? How easy will it be to get commercial partners paying $100K a year in patent royalties? Might it be easier to hold a workshop capped at 50 people, invitation only, each year? 10 years at $100K and there’s a $1m cumulative technology. We know from Stanford’s numbers that this is a 1 in 100 proposition. Think there are 50 people in the world each year who care enough about one of your inventions to attend a workshop that lays it all out? And if there aren’t, why again are you filing an application?
One might think, using an invited workshop in the lead intangible asset position might be a great way to query the market potential of a research invention.
No university does this. I don’t know why. But it does serve to illustrate how the structure of a proposed relationship can change up the decision structure for possible adoption.