Best Practices for Intellectual Property Listing Sites

At least a dozen intellectual property (IP) listing Web sites exist today. Effective placement of your IP on these Web sites can yield low-cost leads for your technology commercialization program. Nonprofits can especially benefit from these sites, as participation is often free or relatively inexpensive. Follow these tips when deciding what, how and where to advertise:

Know the audience—Research the target audience for the site. Is it targeted at specific industries (e.g., pharmaceuticals), a particular geography or a broad audience? Select your technologies and tailor your message based on the intended audience.

Keep it fresh—Nothing turns people off more than finding something interesting, only to be told it is not available anymore. To avoid stale postings, keep a careful log of those technologies you have posted to each site and follow a regular schedule for updates, including removal of those that have been exclusively licensed or abandoned.

Market it—Rather than posting the patent abstracts, take the time to present a polished, market-based overview about each technology. Describe the technology and outline the benefits and applications. Provide a link to a Web page with more details about the technology, such as images, drawings, patents, technical specifications and demonstration videos. This will also help bring more traffic into your own Web site.

For other suggestions on how to effectively market technology-based IP, check out these posts:

• Best Practices for Marketing Intellectual Property
• Online Tools Save Time and Money and Enhance Your Technology Commercialization Marketing
• Dos and Don’ts of Software Commercialization

–By Karen Hiser