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How to Protect and Monetize Your Product Idea · Pitch to Product

• Jack Dalton: Welcome back to the Pitch to Product podcast. Today I'm here with a special guest, Craig Thompson of Thompson Patent Law. We're going to talk about the importance of IP in the overall strategy of bringing your product to market and generating the value that you're bringing it to market for. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: Welcome back to the Pitch to Product podcast. Today I'm here with a special guest, Craig Thompson of Thompson Patent Law. We're going to talk about the importance of IP in the overall strategy of bringing your product to market and generating the value that you're bringing it to market Jack Dalton: We'll hop right into it. Craig, if you could introduce yourself Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: We'll hop right into it. Craig, if you could at 52 Launch. ⁓ Hey Jack, I'm really excited to be here. ⁓ thank you so much for for bringing me on. And ⁓ you know, ⁓ especially with 52 I just want to start off by by giving you guys props because you know, the father of modern Peter Drucker, said the the only two f functions of business. that create customers and keep customers is innovation and marketing. And that's right in your lane. So I just ⁓ you know, the innovation, you know, you got that's your clients that are trying to innovate and marketing and you you help them with that. And that's ⁓ such a need for that. So ⁓ I I'm just really I think it's just it's really cool that that you found found found that at fifty two launch. ⁓ my background is Jack Dalton: Well, we appreciate you saying that. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: My background as an electrical engineer for 10 years before I went to law school, doing product development, product realization, designing products myself. So I'm really, you know, we have some synergy there as well. ⁓ you know, but I was doing electrical design or electronics. And ⁓ then I went to law school and ⁓ you know, went to into course into patents. And ⁓ been doing that for the last 26 years. So I started off at the number one patent firm in the in the world Fish and Richardson for seven years, learning ⁓ litigation and patent prosecution and licensing for the Fortune 500. And now since 2009, I've been doing for a lot of the smaller companies, a few big ones, and ⁓ you know, we've had thousands of thousands of clients get, you know, several thousands of patents ⁓ all over the world. Jack Dalton: Yeah, as as part of my role here at 52 Launch, I look for patent attorneys and IP firms that we can connect our clients with. And of the the dozens of firms that I've looked at, researched, talked to, Thompson Patent Law Systems are pretty unique, ⁓ very impressive. Clearly a lot of thought behind them, a lot of experience in building them. ⁓ and we'll get into some of those in a little bit. We we appreciate that feedback. ⁓ it's great to have somebody on the podcast with the amount of experience that you have. Awesome. So jumping right into one of those really unique processes that you guys have have set up. ⁓ I understand that the way you guys do prior art searches is pretty unique and ⁓ more of an involved experience with your clients. So I wonder if you could tell me a little bit about that. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: that. ⁓ Well, ⁓ it's pr I think prior art search is ⁓ it's it's been a controversial topic throughout my career. ⁓ some people say you shouldn't do it, some people say you should. ⁓ I eventually landed on you should always do it, it in my opinion, ⁓ especially for entrepreneurs who's who have limited capital. They want to be smart and efficient with with their cash and what they invest in. And ⁓ you really it comes down to at the end of the day, you want to know if you're going to invest in a patent or not. I actually wrote a book about it, was the number one bestseller on Amazon and the in the business and legal called Patent Offense, if you want to know more. We do have a free gift, so you're not I'm not selling the book. We can give your audience here all those resources for free at the end if you'd like. ⁓ we have on our website. ⁓ but the point is that there you there's really a big decision whether you should get a patent or shouldn't get a patent. And ⁓ I have a seven step process that I lay out in the book. Jack Dalton: Is awesome. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: ⁓ or in the in the resources that we'll give you for free. And in that s in this at first the first three steps of that seven step process are all about figuring out whether you have something patentable or not. So you can make an informed decision. Rather before you spend all this money and time and effort and then ⁓ there's a very high chance if you don't follow this process that your results either in your likelihood of getting a patent or getting a patent that matters which most patents don't generate a lot of revenue if they don't follow the proper process. So ⁓ our Lightning Prior Art Search that we came up with ⁓ is an innovative way of getting that process started. Jack Dalton: Very cool. And I would encourage people who are thinking about a patent to head over to ThomsonPatentlaw.com and and look into that more. They've got a whole bunch of resources on their website, some really interesting blog posts. I learn something every time I go take a look at your site. So it's a it's a great resource. And two. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: something every time I go take a look at your site. So it's a it's a great resource. Well the unique thing about ⁓ sorry go ahead. ⁓ no I'm going well the the the thing that's really unique about that prior art search just real quickly is the three eyes. It's iterative it's immediate and it's interactive which is really different than a typical prior art search where you would sort of send it off and then Jack Dalton: ⁓ no, absolutely, go ahead. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: They might send it off to India to do it, or they might somebody might do it at and at a junior level, and then it, you know, ⁓ you get some sort of report that's like here's a here's a bunch of prior art that you know, if they print it out on PDFs, it'd be a stack this thick, and they'd say, here you go, here's your report. And ⁓ you're like, okay, so what's the answer? The and the question is, should I get a patent or not? And that doesn't really answer the question. And so ⁓ with the immediate, we actually do it live with you. Jack Dalton: Yeah. Yeah. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: You get immediate feedback and then we can we can adjust with you in real time in a one hour meeting, which is super cool because it helps you sharpen your thinking and helps w we're working together. We're co-creating this this search report. ⁓ it's interactive, meaning you're involved in the process. It's not, you know, somebody in a room doing a a search where you kind of don't know what's happening. You're there, you're like, ⁓ hey, I forgot to mention this. And then like, ⁓ you know, if you didn't mention that, ⁓ You know, we the search wouldn't have been as good. And ⁓ you know, it's it's iterative, meaning f the first time we were like, ⁓ there's a problem that but we can shift, we can pivot and we found great results from that, ⁓ whether helping people either determine whether they should pat get a patent or not. Yeah. Yeah, you know. Jack Dalton: Exactly. Right. Yeah. Yeah, you know, from the the product development side, I imagine that would be a a pretty significant learning experience for most inventors just to see all the other ways that people have tried to do what they're trying to do, ⁓ what exists on the market, who they're actually competing against. I'm sure you you've had clients find sort of product improvement angles by doing those searches with you live. So it's a it's a really cool system that you guys have set up. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: significant learning experience for most inventors just to see all the other ways that people have tried to do what they're trying to do, what exists on the market, who they're actually competing against. I'm sure you you've had clients find sort of product improvement angles absolutely by doing those searches with you live. So it's a it's a really cool system that you guys have set up. It's surprising. Sometimes we're able to the inventor sees, ⁓ somebody was doing that. I didn't The y well, let me say that the one the second most common thing everyone says to me is ⁓ I've searched everywhere and there's nothing else out there like this. That's the second most common thing. The first most common thing is how much is it, of course. But but so everyone says almost those exact words is ⁓ you know, I've searched everywhere and there's nothing else out there like this. And of course we find ninety-nine point nine percent of the time things that they're surprised by. ⁓ I didn't realize that was out there. And And that's closer and it it could be a problem. But but the nice thing is you're there with a skilled patent attorney, not some searcher, not somebody, you know, you know, where you're just getting a report. You're there where they can help you, like, well, this the the real pol thing is obviousness that we have to overcome and it help you pivot and dynamically adjust and see to get and sometimes we're able to, like you said, find Hey, maybe there's an improvement here and ⁓ then sparks an that next level that actually gets them to skip a generation of or two of technology and ⁓ improve their idea to something even better than what they sort of came in with. So it can sharpen. Jack Dalton: Right. Yeah, absolutely. And so to get a little bit back towards ⁓ something you were talking about a minute ago is the value generated by a patent. I noticed something on your website, ⁓ some sort of calculator that people can use to sort of evaluate or predict the future value of a patent even before they've started selling. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: So today. Something on your website, ⁓ some sort of calculator that people can use to sort of evaluate or predict the future value of a patent even before they've started selling the thing that they're thinking about patenting. So I'd I'd be interested to hear how you think about that, what goes into that calculation. Jack Dalton: the thing that they're thinking about patenting. So I'd I'd be interested to hear how you think about that, what goes into that calculation. You know, when you're so early on in the process. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: Yeah, when you're so early on in the process. Three numbers. And it's I'm I'm this is something that fifty two launch actually provides ⁓ your clients I think with some great insights to help them get the three numbers. The three numbers are what's your average retail sales price, you know, ⁓ you know, what's how many quantit what's the quantity you're gonna sell per year, you know, and how you know how many units. And what's the cost of goods sold. And you know, experienced entrepreneurs who have been in a particular business for a long time, they sometimes they just know that they they they can they can pick that out real fast. But a lot of people who are, you know, just inventing or innovating and they're early on in the process and they don't they don't know how to come up with a cost of goods sold. Or they don't know how to, you know, they they they really they they can't Jack Dalton: Yeah. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: even come up with an estimate of a number from a marketing perspective of how many, you know, what do you what do you think you're how many units you're gonna sell per year. And but if you can come up with those three numbers, at least a good guess. And I think you guys, fifty two launches process the way you take them through, you're gonna get them, you're gonna get them there, I believe. So they're gonna have realistic numbers to project. Now the calculator, I put it on there, Jack Dalton: ⁓ yeah. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: It's to make it easy. You can do this on the back of a napkin, you can do it on a whiteboard, you can do it on Excel. It's not rocket science, but you do the simple math and you can r pencil out over four years is is sort of my benchmark that I've used from a litigation and and from a business standpoint. I th I think if you over four years, if if your gross profit that you think you can accumulate total is over two million dollars, then a patent it should be something you should consider. It doesn't mean you can get a patent, but it means it makes business sense if to protect it, because patent is protection for your idea, if you can get good protection. It needs to be good protection, not just any protection. It needs to be quality, litigation quality. But if it's above that threshold, now you've got sort of a an objective criteria. If ⁓ because that's what it's going to cost to, you know, enforce your patent. And if you can't enforce your patent, you know, ⁓ you're not gonna sue somebody for fifty thousand dollars and ⁓ you know the lawyers fees are gonna be too much. Now that does not apply to Amazon products by the way, but ⁓ Amazon has a different threshold if you're gonna if your main channel is going to be an Amazon type thing. But if you're going if you have to sue in district court ⁓ you you need to you need to be thinking at least two million dollars over a four year gross profit. Interesting. So talking Jack Dalton: Interesting. So talk me through why it's different with Amazon. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: Amazon has a special program called Apex. And it's ⁓ matter of fact, I I I did an AI search. ⁓ this is a thick talking about AI, everybody talking about AI these days. I asked Grok about ⁓ the Amazon A Apex program, just you know, thinking about what we might talk about today, just last night, and I've got the business version, the upgrade, the the smart version, and it gave me a totally hallucinated answer. It was totally wrong. Jack Dalton: ⁓ yeah. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: And I knew it was wrong. And I said, that's the wrong answer. It should be X and Y and Z. And it said, ⁓ I'm sorry, you're right. So there you go for AI. AI still there's still judgment from an experienced AI isn't the be all end all that everybody wants it, hopes it to be yet. but ⁓ the Amazon Apex program and how it affects the ROI calculator that's on our website, it's on our homepage or be on our resources page and it'll be in the free gift that we're gonna ⁓ provide for your the the your audience. is the is the Apex will g is a very, very low cost as opposed to district court litigation, which is can be millions of dollars to go to trial. it's about five thousand dollars of fees that you put in plus about five grand for the attorneys to write a brief and you know whether you Jack Dalton: Awesome. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: Say somebody's infringing your patent on Amazon and you want to get them off. ⁓ you can, you know, prepare this paperwork, send it in, the people who are selling the product, if they respond, they'll pay five grand or approximately and ⁓ you know, send it in and say why they don't infringe. And then it's some third third party patent attorney, ⁓ neutral arbitrator says whether it infringes or doesn't infringe. And then if you're right, you get your money back. Jack Dalton: Mm-hmm. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: and you they get kicked off, you know, or you know, you defend and you you keep them whoever wins gets their money back. So because it's such a low cost program, it's not millions of dollars of legal fees and trial costs and everything, ⁓ you know, it becomes much more affordable if that's your main channel. And there's a few other, you know, eBay might have something similar, but the Amazon's probably the big cone. Jack Dalton: Yeah. That's interesting. I ⁓ I assume if I thought about it for a second I would figure this out. But why does Amazon have such a a vested interest in making this process easy for its sellers? Is there a Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: That's interesting. I I assume if I thought about it for a second I would figure this out. But why does Amazon have such a vested interest in making this process easy for its sellers? Well, I I mean obviously if they're if they're the storefront, they don't want to get sued by everybody for patent infringement all all day long. They there'd be the an endless line of people suing them for patent infringement that they'd have to fend off. So this is how they s sort of relieve themselves of Jack Dalton: Right. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: Wash their hands of it and you know, say, Okay, this is our process and otherwise you know go away. It's good it it's good, it makes makes Jack Dalton: It's good. It's good. It makes makes a whole lot of sense. So you touched on AI. It's AI has certainly changed the way that we do things internally to an extent, but it's also changed the way that people come to us, what they're coming to us with in terms of like AI generated drawings, ⁓ AI generated market research. It'd be interesting to hear how you guys are using AI internally. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: So you touched on AI. It's AI has certainly changed the way that we do things internally to an extent, but it's also changed the way that people come to us, what they're coming to us with in terms of like AI generated drawings, AI generated market research. Be interesting to hear how you guys are using AI internally, how you're seeing clients use it. What is it good for? What is it bad for? You know, why can't it do your job yet? Yeah. So of course we're using it in our search, so you can search a you know a billion documents. You mentioned our pr lightning prior art search. Search a billion documents in, you know, five, ten seconds, and then Jack Dalton: How you're seeing clients use it. What is it good for? What is it bad for? No, why can't it do your job yet? Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: We can look at the top and then we can iterate. That allows us to iterate really fast. So we've been doing that for years before a lot of people were talking about AI. ⁓ so that's that's one angle we're using it. We're very careful not to use it for drafting ⁓ too much or ⁓ or you know, it sometimes it gives you a quick answer just like Mr. Professor, kind of like Google. ⁓ it helps us, you know, take time out of the equation, but but we're not drafting Jack Dalton: Crazy. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: ⁓ agreements or license agreements or you know we use more ⁓ rigorous tools for that like you know lexis and westlaw and ⁓ you know but as far as but and also you there's the judgment part. ⁓ you know AI and the the the problem with ⁓ the the the the the problem with prior art searching and knowing what you can get a patent on and how to formulate Jack Dalton: Right. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: how to draft the patent application, because there are many audiences for for a patent application. I don't and you know there's the examiner, there's the inventor, there's the opposing counsel, there's the judge, there's the jury, there's the appeal board, there's all these potential audiences that you're writing for. And you have to have a ⁓ judgment about that. And in the first instance, the the the second well the first one's the inventor. the client, but the second ⁓ audience is the patent examiner. And ⁓ we we actually employ a patent ex a former patent examiner and you know I've had tens of thousands of negotiations with patent examiners. And that is ⁓ something that you have to have the judgment to to know how to craft using the tools of words a claim that is going to Persuade an examiner to feel safe to put his stamp of or her stamp of approval and allow a claim that is actually meaningful in a commercial sense. And it needs to protect a commercially valuable, and so it means needs to be broad enough to actually matter so that someone can infringe it. Otherwise, it if it's if no one can infringe it, it doesn't matter and you're wasting your money. So we don't bother with those. We want to know, we want to push the envelope, get as big of a claim protection as possible. That's your protection. And j getting right to that line and and knowing the prior art and how to negotiate. And doing that before we even start writing the patent application, we're thinking that the end in mind. Doing all that is why ⁓ that comes naturally like breathing to me and to you know to my team, but it's it's not something that ⁓ People ⁓ who think that they're just doing a search and there's nothing else out there like that, they they don't I they don't understand how to win the game of patents. And so that's ⁓ that's a little bit about why AI doesn't have the judgment. And ⁓ you know, I've mentioned it still hallucinates, ⁓ on simple things. And ⁓ it's not ⁓ it's not enough. ⁓ it's not there yet or I'm not sure when it Jack Dalton: ⁓ yeah. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: And i the the interesting thing is about AI is that it's trained on what is trained on is is in the past. And uniquely what we do when when you patent things, we're doing things that haven't existed before. And so the most important part, it's not been trained on. Jack Dalton: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, I think people have this misconception, especially a lot of the clients that 52 Launchworks with who are often launching their first product or their first business. There's this idea that the process of writing a patent is very formulaic. It's Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: Yeah, I think people have this misconception, especially a lot Product or their first business. There's this idea that the process of writing a patent is very formulaic. Jack Dalton: It's very structured, it's sort of maybe even boring. And it sounds, you know, when you frame it like that, it sounds like ⁓ AI could do this, no problem. The reality is, from my understanding, is that every sentence certainly with the claims in a patent, like Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: very structured, it's sort of maybe even boring. And it sounds, you know, when you frame it like that, it sounds like, ⁓ AI could do this, no problem. The reality is, from my understanding, is that every sentence, certainly with the claims in a patent, I Jack Dalton: Poetry might be a strong word, but it is every word in those sentences is there for a very specific purpose. And it's you know, the more I understand about it, the easier it is to s to see that AI is a long way away from being able to to draft a patent that's going to hold weight. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: Poetry might be a strong word, but it is every word in those sentences is there for a very s specific purpose. And it's the more I understand about it, the easier it is to see that AI is a long way away from being able to draft a patent that's going to hold weight. If you understand how AI really works and how it's trained, you know, it's a statistical you know, process. It it it comes up with a different answer every time. It's it it ⁓ if it's not and it it's the words and the claims are super important, but the words that have all the figures and the specification to support those words in the correct way so that you don't shoot yourself in the foot, there's a lot of things that you can say. ⁓ I've there's so the c patent law is extremely complex. It's not simple. It looks it may looks easy, it is not easy. Jack Dalton: Mm-hmm. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: ⁓ there is a lot of subtlety to it that that the you know, that the the the lay person just can't even they're not a w they don't know what they don't know. And AI doesn't know it either. They don't know what questions to ask and ⁓ you know, I don't know if if the AI doesn't isn't gonna give you the the best answer always, so Jack Dalton: ⁓ Yeah, on our end we've found Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: Yeah, you can write an application, you know, you can make the format, but that doesn't mean it's gonna turn into a patent that's gonna protect a commercially valuable choke point. Jack Dalton: Right. Right. That's a a different challenge entirely. We've certainly found some interesting ways to use AI internally at fifty two launch. ⁓ on the branding and marketing sides, there's we'd be fools to not be using AI ⁓ just for the efficiency gains alone. One of the things that you know truly AI can't even begin to touch is the product design side of things. And I think there's another misconception here where Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: We've certainly found some interesting ways to use AI internally at 52 launch. ⁓ the branding and marketing sides, there's we'd be fools to not be using AI ⁓ just for the efficiency gains alone. Sure. One of the things that you know truly AI, I it can't even begin to touch is the product design side of things. And I think Jack Dalton: You can come up with a product idea and get AI to generate a picture of exactly what you had in your head. And people tend to think that is worth something. I don't want to say it's not because it's really good to communicate your vision to somebody else like our design team. But the difference between an AI created rendering and a 3D CAD model. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: There's another misconception here where you can come on the back idea and get AI to generate a picture of exactly what you had in your head. And people tend to think that is worth something. I don't want to say it's not because it's really good to communicate your vision to somebody else, like our design team. But the difference between an AI created rendering and a 3D CAD model. Jack Dalton: That is optimized from day one for a specific manufacturer. Like there's a lot of steps in between those two things. And AI is just so far away from being able to do computer-aided drawing and design. And certainly in a way that it's ⁓ creating products that are manufacturable at a price where you can be competitive in the market, which is certainly one of our one of our primary focuses here at 52 Launch is. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: That is optimized from day one for a specific manufacturer. Like there's a lot of steps in between those two things. And AI is just so far away from being able to do computer drawing and design. And certainly in a way that it's creating products that are manufacturable at a price where you can be competitive in the market, which is certainly one of our primary focuses here at 52 launches doesn't matter how good the product it is if it's priced out the market. Right. I mean, I remember my days when I was at Plexus as a design engineer and you know we'd sit in the design center and engineer some, you know, on schematics, and then we'd go in the lab and prototype it and everything. And then we'd go across the street to the contract that to a you know, Plexus is a contract manufacturer. They the large the long ⁓ lines of ⁓ you know Jack Dalton: Doesn't matter how good the product is if it's priced out of the market. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: soldering, wave soldering and and ⁓ surface mount soldering and all this, you know, you know, cranking out lines and lines of circuit boards. And ⁓ you know, that's a different world. I mean, design for manufacturability, you know, you know, you can design something as a, you know, thinking you're really smart as an engineer and then you get in you can't manufacture that, you know, so that's where I I really was a appreciated that you guys really ⁓ at fifty two launch have that. DFN design for manufacturing ⁓ you know expertise because that is so important. And there's just it's it's it's kind of like the patent process. There's so much knowledge that a skilled, experienced person will have about, you know, temperatures and profiles and you know timing and recipes and you know the shape of something, what's gonna fit, what's not gonna fit, what's gonna cause abrasions and all this that and and what's actually you know, ⁓ where you can actually ⁓ w what's gonna work in the machine, what you can actually buy, you know, from a supply chain point of view. You know, it's complex, just like just like patents. You I had no idea how complex it was, even as an electrical engineer, and until my first product that then I took it over to the manufacturing, spent some time over there and I learned I didn't know much. So that was the same thing with patents. When I, you know, graduated from law school, I thought I you know, studied all this stuff about patents. Jack Dalton: ⁓ yeah. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: I had a lot to learn before I could s you know really learn to to do, you know, write patents or litigate patents or do do due due diligence and do patent license agreements, all that was there's a lot to learn and you just I didn't even know what questions I didn't know to ask. Yeah, absolutely. And and that's one of the reasons we've got sort of so many teams here at fifty two launch where we don't have somebody that's trying to do the product design. Jack Dalton: Yeah, absolutely. And and that's one of the reasons we've got sort of so many teams here at fifty two launch where we don't have somebody that's trying to do the product design and then move on to the branding and then the marketing and then the sourcing and the production. We've got a a different team for each of those things and so people can be really specialized and and gain a a whole lot of expertise ⁓ to be able to help clients move efficiently through that process, which, you know, often can take Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: It's too much. And then the sourcing and the production. We've got a a different team for each of those things. And so people can be really specialized and gain a whole lot of expertise to be able to help clients move efficiently through that process, which you know often can take many years. We have clients come and consult us who I ask, how long have you been thinking about this? Jack Dalton: Many years. We have clients come and consult with us who I ask, How long have you been thinking about this? And it's crazy how often I hear 10 years, 12 years, 15 years. It's like it's dang hard to bring a product to market on your own. ⁓ there's just there's so many moving pieces. And speaking of of going to market. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: And it's crazy how often I hear them, 10 years, 12 years, 15 years. It's like it's dang hard to bring a product to market on your own. ⁓ there's just there's so many moving pieces. And speaking of of going to market, there's if you patented patented your product, there's two primary paths that you can pursue. Jack Dalton: There's no, if you've patented patented your product, there's two primary paths that you can pursue. Either you can go into manufacturing yourself and try and sell the thing on Amazon on your own storefront, wherever you can, or you can license your idea. I'd be interested to hear, you know, maybe what percentages of your clients pursue each of those paths. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: Either you can go into manufacturing yourself and try and sell the thing on Amazon on your own storefront wherever you can, or you can license your idea. I'd be interested to hear, you know. Maybe what percentages of your clients pursue each of those paths? What do you think is the most effective way to do it? Maybe some combination of both makes sense. But that's that's something we ⁓ we talked about a lot over here. Yeah, that's actually ⁓ step six of my ⁓ seven steps process is is really but before you start anything with a patent process, very early on, ⁓ is figuring out what you know. Jack Dalton: What do you think is the most effective way to do it? Maybe some combination of both makes sense. But that's that's something we ⁓ we talk about a lot over here. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: What if anything, ⁓ you know, ⁓ w what's what how am I gonna monetize this? Like what are my monetization strategies? And ⁓ a lot of people are unaware of of what's on the menu and or they think it's gonna be one thing or the other. And I've taught some very sophisticated business people, you know, who just were blown away by the fact that you can actually, you know, have an all of the above strategy ⁓ very easily. And probably it's the best to ⁓ you know, not the the pro probably is the best to to start with getting a prototype and you know g going to a fifty-two launch, getting a prototype, getting some sales, demonstrating that there's a market demand. ⁓ and you know, the people like if you go on if you think of shark tank, you know, the people who really get the interest of the sharks are the people who already have sales and you know that their sales are That's it, because it shows product market fit, it shows market demand, it shows that you actually can sell it's not just a great idea in your head. It's people will pull take out their wallet, pull out money, and get swipe their credit card and give it to you, you know, to get that thing. And if you can get them to that place, now you suddenly a lot more options and higher value opportunities can open up. So if you're able to take if you get an a client comes to you, if you're Jack Dalton: Exactly. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: if you can get them to that first level of, you know, they've got ten customers, a hundred customers, thousand customers, and a thousand sales or whatever the whatever makes sense at you know, ten thousand, whatever is appropriate for that type of product, ⁓ then as a proof of concept, then now you can license it or you can be acquired or you can continue now you can upscale the manufacturing yourself and really really ⁓ lever that up and really get it get the cost of goods down and and you know do mass mass manufacturing. ⁓ but as an involved ⁓ all ⁓ all of the above strategy is you can choose from an exclusive license say you know in I I've done this once in ⁓ to s to s to settle a litigation. ⁓ we I I came up with the idea it was pretty creative everybody's pretty like You can do that? Yeah, we can do that. Okay, so this is how the c like case settled and everybody went away happy, as happy as they could be. is we it was a oxygen ⁓ you know, SPO two sensor, and we said, Okay, you take all the rights in the field of medical, like so hospitals, clinics, doctors, nurses. So you have that field of use. It's like one sentence at the in the you know in in the license agreement. and we'll so that the inventor retained everything in the field of non medical, which included, you know, athletic athletes and ⁓ you know, that sort of stuff, because he wanted to license it to Nike. And so these people had a different business model and these you know, he had a different, you know, target business model. And he kept we retained the ability to do it not in medical, he can't touch that, but he can make it out on his own and license it to, you know, other ⁓ so you can do all three. You could have exclusive licenses over here in different fields of use. You can chop up and carve up your market into different segments and very easily try to maximize or fully optimize. Cause if you try to fully optimize it with one ⁓ one with one licensee you're missing out because they don't care about, you know, these other segments. They're not gonna go into those other segments. So you can say, well, we'll just give you what you what you care about and we'll keep the rest. We don't have to sell it all. ⁓ so it's like it's like real property in a way. Intellectual property is very much has an ally to you can carve up your subdivide your your real property into smaller in and you know expensive things come in small packages, right? So Jack Dalton: Yeah. Yeah, that's a that's a cool, cool solution there. ⁓ and certainly everything you just said is is very aligned with how we think about licensing versus selling. Our goal is always to get clients to revenue as quickly as possible. And in our experience, that means going and printing a a thousand, two thousand, five thousand units off a manufacturing line and going and selling them as quickly as possible before either you go back and place a bigger order, depending on how that first one goes. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: everything you just said is is very get clients to revenue as quickly as possible. And in our experience, that means going and printing a a thousand, two thousand, five thousand units off the manufacturing line and going and selling them as quickly as possible before either you go back and place a bigger order depending on how that first one goes or you start looking at licensing deals. But now I I've been known to say this to people on calls have you ever seen somebody get a deal on Shark Tank with zero dollars in revenue? Jack Dalton: Or you start looking at licensing deals. But now I I've been known to say this to people on calls. Have you ever seen somebody get a deal on Shark Tank with zero dollars in revenue? Like you can look it up. It I think it happened once, but it's it has happened a few times, but it's rare because you know, we get a lot of clients asking us to do kind of a reduced version of our accelerator program where they just want market research and a prototype. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: And you can look it up. It I think it happened once, but it has happened a few times, but it's rare because you know we get a lot of clients asking us to do kind of a reduced version of our accelerator program where they just want market research and a prototype. There's nothing wrong with market research or a prototype. They're both great steps in the process of getting to a real business. Jack Dalton: There's nothing wrong with market research or a prototype. They're both great steps in the process of getting to a real business. But they pale in comparison to sales numbers. And they don't help you get that much closer to the sales numbers. They help you feel better, build your own confidence in the product, in the market, in the fit, but they're not a substitute for revenue. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: But they pale in comparison to sales numbers. And they don't help you get that much closer to the sales numbers. They help you feel better, build your own confidence in the product, in the market, in the fit, but they're not a substitute for for revenue. Right. Yeah, I mean, we're looking at a a licensing potential l sale of a patent or sale of a business. I mean it's a patent as a should be considered as a business asset. I mean that's kind of throughout everything we've talked about today is it's a business asset. It's it's an asset on your balance sheet. You know, if you want to look at it, you know, in terms of if you sell your business, it has some intangible it's an intangible asset. ⁓ you know, and I think when you sell it, you know, you you pay capital gains on it. And so but I don't take tax advice about that, but ⁓ I'm not a tax lawyer, but Jack Dalton: ⁓ yeah. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: ⁓ you know, it's it's the point is it has value independent of the operations of the business. It has its it's so you can sell it, you can license it. ⁓ you know, it's sort of again, it's like sort of like real estate. You can sell it, you can license you can rent it, ⁓ which is what a license is, ⁓ under certain very, very defined conditions. Jack Dalton: Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. We've ⁓ Now, exit strategies are important. When you go into business, you should probably already be thinking about it. And certainly some some intellectual property can help you get to a more successful exit there. Awesome. Well, before we start wrapping things up, you've mentioned this package that you've put together. I'm sure people would be curious to know what they can expect if they go take a look at that. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: strategies are important when you go into business you should probably already be thinking about it and certainly some some intellectual property can help you get to a more successful exit there. Awesome. Well, before we start wrapping things up, you've mentioned this package that you put together. I'm sure people would be curious to know what they can expect if they go take a look at that. Yeah, so ⁓ just for your for this audience, we've got a we we've ⁓ have a ⁓ a link that ⁓ we're gonna it's Thomson Patentlaw.com slash fifty-two launch, no spaces. Thompson Patent Law dot com slash fifth five two launch. And ⁓ there we've got some of these resources. We got some tr ⁓ training videos that I've done that are talking about ⁓ one's called Patents for Profits, and it goes through how you can monetize ⁓ patents and and how to think about patents as a competitive advantage. I have some trainings in there on protecting your idea, protecting your brand, and monetizing your IP. ⁓ that's Jack Dalton: Mm-hmm. Craige Thompson, JD EE PE MBA: you know, ⁓ another another set of trainings, each with ⁓ individual worksheets that you can work on ⁓ your own business have as as you know to kind of help you can add that into your business plan or your planning. and the ⁓ you mentioned ⁓ we call it Craig's one hundred times ROI ⁓ calculator because that's the the three numbers that that if you just have those three numbers you can project out and and start to s get a get a handle on. Does it make sense? Jack Dalton: Yeah. Thank you to everybody for watching. If you made it this far, ⁓ stay tuned for episodes ⁓ and ⁓ give a call if you've got a product idea.