Deciding to Licence or Assign When Selling a Patent

Deciding to Licence or Assign When Selling a Patent After youve brought your new idea to full fruition, youve invented it; and after youve gotten your intellectual property protection, youve patented it. Like most independent inventors, the next task at hand will be commercializing your product, you make money from it. If the following conditions apply to you: You have decided for a variety of reasons that you shouldnt be the one to manufacture, market, and distribute your invention yourself, you invented a better mousetrap but you dont want to go into the mousetrap business.You were/are not an employee and your invention was/is not automatically assigned to your employer as specified in your contract. There are two common ways to profit from your patent: licensing and assignment. Lets take a look at the differences between the two and help you decide which path is better for you. The Licensing Route Licensing involves a legal written contract where you the owner of the patent are the licensor, who grants rights to your patent to a licensee, the person that wants to license your patent. Those rights can include: the right to use your invention, or copy and sell your invention. When licensing you can also write performance obligations into the contract, for example, you dont want your invention to just sit on the shelf so you can include a clause that your invention must be brought to market within a certain amount of time. Licensing can be an exclusive or non-exclusive contract. You can determine how long the licensing contract will be in effect. Licensing is revocable by a breach of contract, by preset time limits, or by a failure to meet performance obligations. The Assignment Route Assignment is the irrevocable and permanent sale and transfer of ownership of a patent by the assignor (thats you) to the assignee. Assignment means that you will no longer ever have any rights to your patent. Typically its a one-time lump sum total sale of your patent. How The Money Rolls In - Royalties, Lump Sum With licensing your contract can stipulate a one-time payment or/and that you receive royalties from the licensee. These royalties usually last up until your patent expires, that could be twenty years that you receive a small percentage of the profits from each product that is sold. The average royalty is about 3% of the wholesale price of the product, and that percentage can commonly range from 2% to 10%, and in very rare cases up to 25%. It really depends on what kind of invention you have made, for example; a brilliant piece of software for an application with a foreseeable market can easily command double-digit royalties. On the other hand, the inventor of the flip-top drink can is one of the richest inventors in the world, whose royalty rate was only a tiny percentage. With assignments you can also receive royalties, however, lump-sum payments are much more common (and bigger) with assignments. It should be pointed out that because licensing is revocable when someone doesnt pay you your royalties thats a breach of contract, and you can cancel the contract and take away their rights to use your invention. You would not have the same weight with assignments because they are irrevocable. So in most cases, it is better to go the licensing route when royalties are involved. So which is better, royalties or a lump sum? Well consider the following: how ​novel is your invention, how much competition does your invention have and how likely is it that a similar product will hit the market? Could there be a technical or regulatory failure? How successful is the licensee? If there are no sales, ten percent of nothing is nothing. All the risks (and benefits) involved with royalties are avoided with a lump sum payment, and with assignments, that lump sum payment you receive, you never have to refund. However, negotiations for a lump sum payment do acknowledge the fact that the buyer is paying more upfront because they are assuming more risks to gain themselves a greater profit in the long run. Deciding Between Assignment or Licensing Royalties should be the main consideration when deciding between licensing or assignment. If you choose to receive royalties, choose licensing. If you want the capital that the best lump sum payment will bring you choose assignment. Are you in debt from your invention project? Would the money advance other projects and erase your debts? Or is your invention ready for commercialization, ready to make and sell, and you have determined that sales would be good and that you want royalties, then licensing is probably the better choice for you.

Biography of Luigi Galvani, Electrophysiology Pioneer

Biography of Luigi Galvani, Electrophysiology Pioneer Luigi Galvani (September 9, 1737–December 4, 1798) was an  Italian physician who demonstrated what we now understand to be the electrical basis of nerve impulses. In 1780, he accidentally made frog muscles twitch by jolting them with a spark from an electrostatic machine. He went on to develop a theory of animal electricity. Fast Facts: Luigi Galvani Known For:  Demonstrating the electrical basis of nerve impulsesAlso Known As:  Aloysius GalvanusBorn:  September 9, 1737 in Bologna,  Papal StatesParents: Domenico Galvani  and  Barbara Caterina Galvani  Died:  December 4, 1798 in Bologna, Papal StatesEducation: University of Bologna, Bologna, Papal StatesPublished Works: De viribus electricitatis in motu musculari commentarius (Commentary on the Effect of Electricity on Muscular Motion)Spouse: Lucia Galeazzi Galvani  Notable Quote: I was fired with incredible zeal and desire of having the same experience, and of bringing to light whatever might be concealed in the phenomenon. Therefore I myself also applied the point of a scalpel to one or other crural nerve at a time when one or other of those who were present elicited a spark. The phenomenon always occurred in the same manner: violent contraction in individual muscles of the limbs, just as if the prepared animal had been seized with tetanus, were induced at the same moment of time in which sparks were discharged. Early Life and Education Luigi Galvani was born in Bologna, Italy, on September 9, 1737. As a young man he wished to take religious vows, but his parents persuaded him to go to university instead. He studied at the University of Bologna, where he earned his degree in medicine and philosophy in 1759. Work and Research After graduation, he supplemented his own research and practice as an honorary lecturer at the university. His earliest published papers covered a wide range of topics, from the anatomy of bones to the urinary tracts of birds. By the end of the 1760s, Galvani had married Lucia Galeazzi, the daughter of a former professor. They had no children. Galvani became a professor of anatomy and surgery at the university, taking the position of his father-in-law after he died. In the 1770s, Galvani’s focus shifted from anatomy to the relationship between electricity and life. Great Discovery As with many scientific discoveries, a colorful story is told about the accidental revelation of bioelectricity. According to Galvani himself, one day he observed his assistant using a scalpel on a nerve in a frog’s leg. When a nearby electric generator created a spark, the frog’s leg twitched. This observation prompted Galvani to develop his famous experiment. He spent years testing his hypothesis- that electricity can enter a nerve and force a contraction- with a variety of metals. Animal Electricity Later, Galvani was able to cause muscular contraction without a source of electrostatic charge by touching the frog’s nerve with different metals. After further experimenting with natural (i.e., lightning) and artificial (i.e., friction) electricity, he concluded that animal tissue contained its own innate vital force, which he termed animal electricity. He believed animal electricity to be a third form of electricity- a view that wasn’t altogether uncommon in the 18th century. While these findings were revelatory, astonishing many in the scientific community at the time, it took a contemporary of Galvani’s, Alessandro Volta, to fine-tune the meaning of Galvani’s discoveries. Voltas Response A professor of physics, Volta was among the first to mount a serious response to Galvani’s experiments. Volta proved that the electricity did not emerge from the animal tissue itself, but from the effect produced by the contact of two different metals in a moist environment (a human tongue, for instance). Ironically, our current understanding shows that both scientists were right. Galvani would attempt to respond to Volta’s conclusions by doggedly defending his theory of animal electricity, but the onset of personal tragedies (his wife died in 1790) and the political momentum of the French Revolution prevented him from pursuing his response. Later Life and Death Napoleon’s troops occupied Northern Italy (including Bologna) and in 1797 academics were required to take an oath of allegiance to the republic declared by Napoleon. Galvani refused and was forced to leave his position. Without income, Galvani moved back to his childhood home. He died there on December 4, 1798, in relative obscurity. Legacy Galvani’s influence lives on, not only in the discoveries that his work inspired- like Volta’s eventual development of the electric battery- but in a wealth of scientific terminology as well. A galvanometer is an instrument used to detect electric current. Galvanic corrosion, meanwhile, is an accelerated electrochemical corrosion that occurs when dissimilar metals are placed in electrical contact. Lastly, the term galvanism is used in biology to signify any muscular contraction stimulated by an electrical current. In physics and chemistry, galvanism is the induction of electrical current from a chemical reaction. Galvani has a surprising role in literary history as well. His experiments on frogs evoked a haunting sense of reawakening in the way they motivated movement in a dead animal. Galvanis observations served as a noted inspiration for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Sources Dibner, Bern.  Galvani-Volta: A Controversy That Led to the Discovery of Useful Electricity. Burndy Library, 1952.Commentary On The Effect Of Electricity On Muscular MotionFull text of .â€Å"Luigi Galvani.†Ã‚  MagLab.