Tutorial: Pitching to Licensees to License Your Idea
If your innovation has been awarded a patent, congratulations! There is just one more step that you control to get your technology into real products that people use: Engaging a licensee. Technology Development will find potential licensees, but it is your ability to convey how your innovation will solve their problem that will lead to a license.
It is natural to focus your pitch to a potential licensee on your technology, but corporate decision makers are looking for solutions to problems rather than pushing the boundaries of science and engineering. Even if their primary goal in licensing your patent is to push those boundaries, you can engage them more readily by framing your innovation as the best way to solve that specific problem. The corporation’s innovation challenges may be large or small:
- Advance the science underlying their existing products or in a critical research area.
- Enter a new area of development for the company.
- Solve a specific problem, e.g., reduce production costs or improve reliability of an existing product.
The decision-makers also have red flags:
- Too much technical risk in adapting your innovation to their needs.
- Challenges in technology transfer from your lab to their R&D or product departments.
These bullets are guidelines as to how to frame your pitch to engage your audience. The only way to know the needs that the corporation wants the license to address is to do your homework, just as you would for any job interview. The more you understand about their business and challenges, the more you can tailor your presentation. Your pitch should focus on tackling their needs and not on teaching your science.
Your best sources of information are your contacts in Technology Development and any contacts you may have within the corporation, the corporation’s annual report, and their website.
Pitch coach Linda Plano, PhD has adapted her original 10 Questions (that every pitch should answer) to help you craft a presentation that will engage corporate decision-makers from the first slide to the last, simultaneously building the business and science cases for licensing your patent.
When you answer these questions with integrity and vision, they will help you build a deck that tells your story in your way, but makes it compelling to the corporation’s managers.
The 10 Questions
| # | Question | How to frame your answer |
| 1 | Who cares? | Address and quantify important problem specific to corporation’s business interests. |
| 2 | What do you do? | Illustrate how your patent can deliver an innovative solution to the problem. |
| 3 | Why will they win? | Show how your patented solution will solve the corporation’s technology challenge with greater innovation and efficiency than other options. |
| 4 | How will they stay ahead? | If possible, show how your patent’s claims establish barriers to entry for corporation’s competitors. |
| 5 | Does it work? | Provide data-based validation for the claims made in answering Questions 1 – 4 and/or describe your past technology transfer successes. |
| 6 | How will they make money? | If available and applicable, indicate how the innovation will build on the current business model: add a new market, increase gross margins, or expand product lines. |
| 7 | How much will they make? | If available and applicable, show how your innovation will save time or money compared to their current solutions. |
| 8 | Why you? | Validate the capabilities of the research team that are available to facilitate technology transfer. |
| 9 | What will you do? | Highlight the value-added milestones associated with the technology transfer process, e.g., how much support your group can offer over what period of time. |
| 10 | How much will it cost? | Optional: Propose an appropriate amount of funding needed to accomplish the technology transfer milestones in the proposed time frame. |
How to Sign Up
To learn more about how to participate or for more information contact Michael Pratt at mpratt@bu.edu.