You Got a Patent — Now What?

The patent grant notice arrives. You have spent years and thousands of dollars prosecuting an application through examination, responding to Office Actions, amending claims, and waiting. The patent is granted. You own an exclusive right to your invention for the remainder of its 20-year term.

And then — nothing happens.

This is the experience of most patent holders. The grant feels like the finish line, but it is actually the starting line. A granted patent is an asset on paper. Converting it into commercial value — revenue, competitive advantage, or strategic leverage — requires deliberate action that most inventors never take.

This guide covers what to do in the first 90 days after grant, and how to build a commercialisation plan that turns your patent into what it was always meant to be: a business tool.

The Hard Truth About Granted Patents

Fewer than 5% of granted patents ever generate direct revenue for their owners. The rest sit in portfolios, maintained at cost, until they expire or are abandoned.

This is not because most patented inventions are bad. It is because most patent holders do not treat the patent as a commercial instrument after grant. They do not identify licensees. They do not monitor for infringement. They do not market their technology. They do not build the business relationships that convert a legal right into money.

The patent system gives you exclusivity. What you do with that exclusivity is entirely up to you.

The First 90 Days After Grant

Day 1–7: Administrative Foundations

Record the assignment. If the patent was filed in the inventor's name but is owned by a company (through an assignment agreement), record the assignment at the patent office. At the USPTO, unrecorded assignments can create ownership disputes with subsequent purchasers. At the EPO and most other offices, recordation establishes the chain of title publicly. Do this immediately — it is a 15-minute administrative task that prevents future complications.

Set up maintenance fee reminders. The patent will lapse if you miss maintenance fee deadlines. Set calendar reminders for every fee due date across every jurisdiction — or engage a patent annuity service to manage renewals automatically. See: Patent Maintenance Strategy: When to Keep, When to Abandon

Mark your products. If you manufacture products that practise the patent, begin marking them with the patent number immediately. In the US, proper marking is required to collect damages for past infringement. Options include physical marking ("Patent No. X,XXX,XXX"), virtual patent marking (a URL linking to a page listing your patents), or both. Most jurisdictions recommend marking even where not strictly required — it puts competitors on notice.

File continuations if planned. If you intend to pursue additional claims from the same specification — broader claims, claims covering different aspects, claims targeting competitor products — file a continuation application before the patent issues. Once the patent grants without a pending continuation, the prosecution window closes. This is a critical strategic decision that must be made before grant, not after. See: Patent Continuation Strategy

Day 7–30: Intelligence Gathering

Identify potential infringers. Now that you know exactly what your claims cover (as granted, not as filed), systematically assess whether anyone is currently practising your claimed invention. Search for:

• Competitors selling products that match your claim elements
• Products on Amazon, Alibaba, or industry-specific marketplaces that appear to use your technology
• Companies whose own patent applications cite your patent (they are aware of your technology)
• Trade show exhibitors and product catalogues in your technology area

Document what you find. Photographs, product listings, technical specifications, and purchase records create an evidence foundation for future enforcement or licensing discussions.

Assess your freedom to operate. Your own patent does not guarantee that your products are free of third-party patent risk. If you have not conducted an FTO analysis, now is the time — before you scale production or marketing. See: Freedom to Operate: What It Is and Why It Matters

Review your patent portfolio. If you hold multiple patents, assess how they work together. Do they cover different aspects of the same product? Do they create overlapping layers of protection? Are there gaps that a continuation or new application could fill? A coherent portfolio is more commercially valuable than a collection of isolated patents.

Day 30–90: Commercialisation Strategy

This is where most patent holders stall. The administrative work is done; now the business work begins.

Choose your commercialisation path. There are four fundamental paths, and most patents follow one:

Path 1: Self-manufacture. You make and sell products that practise the patent. The patent's value is defensive — it prevents competitors from copying your product. Your focus should be on market development, not licensing.

Path 2: License. You grant others the right to use the patent in exchange for royalties. This is the most common commercialisation path for independent inventors. See: How to License Your Patent

Path 3: Sell. You transfer ownership of the patent to a buyer for a one-time payment. Appropriate when you cannot or do not want to manage ongoing licensing relationships. See: How to Sell Your Patent

Path 4: Hold and deter. You maintain the patent primarily as a defensive asset — its value is in preventing competitors from operating freely in your technology space, creating leverage in cross-licensing negotiations, or increasing your company's valuation for investment or acquisition. This is common for startups building portfolios for exit.

Building a Licensing Programme

If licensing is your chosen path, here is how to build a programme systematically:

Step 1: Create Your Patent Package

Before approaching any potential licensee, prepare a professional package that communicates value:

Technology brief (1–2 pages): What the invention does, what problem it solves, and what commercial opportunity it creates — written in the licensee's language, not yours. "This technology reduces thermal failure rates in LED fixtures by 30%" is more compelling than "This is a novel heat dissipation mechanism."

Claims chart: A side-by-side comparison showing how a specific product (ideally the licensee's product or their competitor's product) reads on each element of your independent claim. This is the document that converts abstract patent language into concrete commercial relevance.

Market data: The size of the addressable market, the competitive landscape, and where the patent fits. A licensee evaluates your patent based on what it enables them to capture — not on what it cost you.

Patent status summary: Grant date, remaining term, jurisdictions covered, maintenance status, and any pending continuations or related applications.

Step 2: Identify and Prioritise Targets

Rank potential licensees by three criteria:

1. Proximity to infringement — are they already using your technology? (highest leverage)
2. Market position — would your technology improve their competitive position? (highest commercial value)
3. Licensing history — have they licensed similar technologies before? (highest probability of closing)

A company that is already infringing, would benefit commercially from a formal licence, and has a history of licensing is your ideal first target.

Step 3: Make First Contact

Approach through your patent attorney or directly to the company's IP licensing, business development, or technology scouting team. A cold email that is short (3 paragraphs), specific (names the patent and the product), and commercial (frames the value proposition) gets responses. A long email that describes your invention's history and your personal journey does not.

Step 4: Negotiate and Close

See: How to License Your Patent for detailed negotiation guidance, term sheet structure, and royalty benchmarks.

Building an Enforcement Strategy

If you have identified infringers but they are not willing to license, enforcement is the alternative. Enforcement is expensive, adversarial, and uncertain — but it is the mechanism that gives patents their deterrent value.

Before filing suit, always send a cease-and-desist letter offering a licence. Many disputes resolve at this stage. A well-drafted C&D letter, sent by experienced patent counsel, demonstrates seriousness without committing to the cost of litigation.

If the C&D is ignored or refused: Assess whether the expected recovery (damages, injunction, or licensing revenue under threat of continued litigation) justifies the cost. US patent litigation costs $1M–$5M+ through trial. German patent litigation costs EUR 100,000–500,000. Chinese patent litigation costs RMB 500,000–3,000,000. These are real numbers that must be weighed against realistic recovery estimates.

Litigation finance options: Third-party litigation funding — where a funder pays your legal costs in exchange for a share of any recovery — has grown substantially and is available for patent cases with strong merits. Contingency-fee arrangements with patent litigation firms are also available for particularly strong cases.

See: Patent Infringement: What It Is and What to Do About It and How to Respond to a Patent Infringement Threat

The Ongoing Work of Patent Ownership

A granted patent is not a passive asset. Active management produces dramatically better outcomes than filing and forgetting.

Monitor your technology space. Set up patent watch alerts for new applications in your CPC classification codes. When competitors file applications that cite your patent or claim similar technology, you gain early intelligence about market developments and potential infringement.

Review your portfolio annually. At each maintenance fee due date, reassess whether the patent justifies continued investment. Technology evolves, markets shift, and a patent that was valuable at grant may have diminished value five years later. See: Patent Maintenance Strategy

Build relationships in your industry. Patent licensing is ultimately a people business. Attending trade shows, publishing in industry journals, and engaging with potential licensees' technical teams creates the relationships that make licensing conversations possible. A cold email from a stranger gets a different response than a follow-up from someone the CTO met at a conference.

Consider your patent as part of a broader IP strategy. A patent protects the mechanism. A trademark protects the brand identity you build around it. A trade secret protects the manufacturing know-how that makes your product commercially superior. Together, these create a layered IP position that is far more defensible than any single right alone. See: Trademarks for Inventors and Patent vs. Trade Secret

Sources

1. USPTO - Maintain Your Patent — Maintenance fee schedules, deadlines, and revival procedures for granted US patents
2. USPTO - Assignment Recording — Portal for recording patent assignments and establishing chain of title
3. WIPO - IP Commercialization — Guidance on licensing, selling, and commercialising patents for inventors and SMEs
4. Google Patents — Search tool for identifying potential infringers and monitoring competitor patent activity
5. USPTO - Patent Trial and Appeal Board — Information on IPR and PGR proceedings relevant to validity challenges