Decide what you want and know where you are going

In bringing your research to market it is crucial to know what you want, to decide where you are going and where you wish to be. That is, develop a firm, flexible, strategic plan. So what do you want? Some options are: (a) to make yourself so rich that you never have to work again; (b) to have a career change; (c) to have other related commercial interests; (d) to have a lively interest in seeing your work developed further and used for the benefit of society; or (e) to make money for your institute. No doubt there are other possibilities. Your chances of reaching your goal will be dependent on the technology and its exploitation. If you have a technology that is only suitable for licensing then you can expect a percentage of the fee (depending upon your arrangement with your institute) and/or of the royalties. The more you can segment the potential market for the technology or the more generic it is, the more likely that you will sell additional licences. Perhaps the best example of this is the Stanford licence for genetic engineering (genetic manipulation using plasmids), but this is a precedent that is unlikely to be repeated often. Licences will: (a) generate revenue; (b) be a useful publicity aid to increase the profile of your institute; and (c) will help form collaborations with industry.