Effective commercialisation of Intellectual property involves the exploitation of IP for some commercial gain. The commercialisation of IP is one of the advantages of having registered or taken steps to protect your IP in the first place. Having invested significant sums in clearing the IP for use and registration; protecting the IP by way of registration organisations often forget about actually making money out of their IP.

The protection of intellectual property is not just about the ability to stop others using and thereby creating some competitive advantage it also involves successfully generating some income from the IP itself.

There a five ways to commercialise your IP, these are:

1. Licensing the use of the IP to a third party or related entity for some fee or royalty
2. Assigning the IP to another entity to create value within this organisation in return for a lump sum payment or royalties.
3. Creating an IP holding company for the purpose of protecting or commercialising the IP away from the main parent company. Undertaking commercialisation by way of a spin-off company transfers the responsibility to this company to utilise or develop the IP. The spin-off company may also be more attractive to investors to fund further development of the IP asset.
4. Creating a joint venture company to use the IP.
5. Using the IP to secure financing or collateralising the IP.