inventor, so the only advantage is relying on marketing, being the first and therefore customer loyalty and wanting a specific brand. A copyright is also not effective protection for the physical use of the inventor’s ideas it only provides protection for the ‘expressions of work’ and not the use of ides contained in the work. A patent is the only reliable way of protecting your work. A patent allows several options of how you can utilize your idea. You can choose to follow the idea through yourself and try to commercialize the idea. This may not be the best option as it most probably will involve a large start up cost, this means that you will need a large amount of capital. This is especially true in the biotechnology industry where equipment may not come cheaply, and large trials are required to obtain reliable results of your work and hence a reliable commercial product. If the capital is not accessible then external investors will be necessary, these may not come cheaply or easily, as potential investors will see the operation as ‘high risk’ and therefore want a large return on their money. They will most probably be reluctant to pour money into an uncertain business that is not operational yet. However there are other ways to utilizes the patent. It is possible to raise money by floating the company on the public stockexchange. It is possible to license the IP to another company and receive royalties or to license the IP to all of your competitors so that a percentage of any profits that are made by them the inventor receive royalties. The entire patent and IP can be sold so that another company can then own the ideas. There are several advantages and disadvantages involved with the different options by which the invention is commercialized. The most beneficial can only be determined by market conditions at the time, the level of control that the original inventor wishes to maintain over the inventi...
