Posts Tagged: "licensable product"

The DRTV Product Summit is a one-day event that will be held on Wednesday, October 22, 2014 at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Inventors will be given the opportunity to pitch their products to representatives of the six (6) DRTV companies on one day in one location. The event is not open to all inventors. Over the past few years the event has grown and there has been significant interest in the inventor community. In order to be considered inventors must submit their inventions to be reviewed by a panel of referees. Thanks to an extended deadline, submissions are now due no later than Friday, October 3, 2014.

While the DRTV Product Summit is geared toward inventors with largely plug and play products, it is still nevertheless aimed at giving everyday inventors an opportunity. The major benefit to inventors selected is that they can present to serious companies that are looking for new products in one day in one location. The deadline for submissions has to be weeks in advance of the event so that proper time can be spent vetting the inventions and inviting the inventors. No guarantee of consideration can be extended to those who submit after September 30, 2014.

You might want to consider some type of up front guaranteed payment to ensure that you get at least something. This may seem overly pessimistic, but it is the job of any attorney negotiating or drafting a license to assume that things will go wrong. The agreement can never contemplate everything, but with respect to payment you need protection. What if the licensee is paying you a defined percentage of sales but then decides to offer your product for free, or as an add-on to a sale, as is common in direct TV marketing? If your product is used as a “come on” and given away for free even 100% of $0 is still $0. That is why some type of minimum payment can be quite beneficial.

There are three major things that need to intersect to make a licensable product,” Lambert said. “First of all, you have the patentable side. Either it is patented or patentable, because essentially what we are licensing is intellectual property. Second, is the product marketable, meaning people want to buy it? Does it have unique features that people like, or need, or want. Lastly is it commercially feasible? That means that you can sell it, or make and sell it, for certain margins.