I’ve missed a good number of opportunities over the years for some intellectual property on some unique technologies that I *think* I invented (they may have already been) and which later showed up in the market, sometimes very successfully. In one case, a partner and I built an electronic device that later become a multi-billion dollar industry, but again we did not lock down any IP for it at the time. That would have been a nice one.
Although my companies have gone on to procure a number of patents in a couple industries over the years, some of the larger ideas I’ve had I chose not to pursue IP for due to several reasons, usually a combination of these:
– Not being my primary industry/business focus
– Not worth spending 5+ figures on to attempt to pursue, especially when not in primary area of focus- also 5 figures has been a lot to me in the past.
– Lack of a patent/IP firm that actually tries to help achieve success instead of simply trying to bill the max hours.
I haven’t researched this much yet, but I’m curious if there are firms that will partner with small businesses to handle all their IP in exchange for licensing revenue. And perhaps even some equity. I’m aware of the “Patent Your Idea” services out there, but they often are just services trying to collect a fee for some basic submission work and not legitimate partners.
Having said this, I currently have one “big” idea related to e-commerce, a couple others that would be big in a smaller sporting goods industry, and one niche in the VR space.
I’m posting this on quora as well – see hereĀ https://www.quora.com/Are-they-IP-firms-that-will-partner-on-your-IP-and-work-on-licensing-it-and-defending-it-as-a-partner-instead-of-just-a-paid-service