Home > Topics > Dealmaking and Marketing Technology to Product-Development Partners > An Introduction to Marketing Early-Stage Technologies > Editor's Summary, Implications and Best Practices

As this chapter explains, marketing is “the technique of identifying and exploiting markets” by “understanding what buyers need and how to meet those needs.” Scientists, lawyers, and technology managers often misunderstand marketing; they think of it as simply a way to push technologies into the market rather than a way of allowing the needs of buyers to pull them in.

Marketing is not merely “advertising” or “sales.” Rather, marketing is a multi-stage process: first, the essential characteristics or benefits of a technology must be quantified; next, it is important to identify the people who would find these characteristics or benefits desirable and therefore be willing to pay for them; and finally, the benefits of the technology must be communicated clearly and compellingly to those potential users.

There are five basic marketing questions: who?, what?, why?, where?, and when?.

1. Who will buy the technology? Will the purchasers be producers (those who further develop the technology in products) or consumers (those who use the said end product)? Or is it a third party (for example a product development partnership … PDP) acting on behalf of those who would directly benefit or realize its utility? It is essential to understand the economic relationships between those who derive the direct benefits or utility from the technology and those most likely to invest in its development.
2. What does the buyer of the technology want? What characteristics, qualities, factors, or capabilities of the technology are valuable to the buyer, and how valuable are they?
3. Why would a party choose to license or purchase a technology? What is particularly compelling about it? Would it give buyers a competitive advantage over their rivals or an improved bargaining position with their suppliers or customers?
4. Where are potential users of the technology located? In which markets? Through which channels can they be reached? Ideally, as many different uses for the technology as possible should be developed in different markets. Some technologies, of course, cannot be used in certain ways because of restrictions imposed by the presence of third party IP rights.
5. When can you sell the technology to buyers? Is the technology so new that the market is not yet receptive to it? Or are markets for this type of technology relatively mature? Where are the buyers in terms of their seasonal or fiscal cycles, and how do those cycles affect their buying decisions?

The answers to these questions will guide your marketing plan. By providing an assessment of how the technology will be received by potential customers, market research can add significant value to the technology. Market research for one technology can also inform the marketing plans of other technologies. Market research may even reveal that a technology can be used in a completely new and unexpected way, in a previously unanticipated market.

Perhaps the most important advice this chapter has to offer scientists and technology managers is that the “unique selling proposition” of a technology—that is, the features, advantages, or benefits that it offers the user—is rarely the science behind the technology. Good marketing makes a technology understandable and attractive to buyers, then allows their demand to draw the technology into the market.

Key Implications and Best Practices

Given that IP management is heavily context specific, these Key Implications and Best Practices are intended as starting points to be adapted to specific needs and circumstances.

For Government Policymakers

• Technology marketing is the process by which the owners of a technology create relationships between themselves and potential users that will enable the technology to be developed so that it can be made widely available, either via commercialization or by other methods. The overall path, from R&D to consumer use, is called the innovation pipeline.
• Public-sector IP managers should have good marketing skills so that their technologies find users in the private sector.
• Governments should support the movement of innovations from public-sector institutions into the marketplace so that they can achieve the greatest public benefit.

For Senior Management (university president, R&D manager, etc)

• Marketing should be undertaken by people with training in business and marketing, not scientists and technical people.
• Market research is never wasted. Market research for one technology can inform the marketing of other technologies.
• Provide adequate support to technology transfer offices so that they can effectively market inventions.

For Scientists

• The “unique selling proposition” of your technology—in other words, the features, advantages, or benefits it offers—is probably not the science behind the technology. Good marketing makes a technology understandable and attractive to buyers.

For Technology Transfer Officers

• The technology transfer office (TTO) can serve as a focal point or a hub, coordinating the activities of professionals who work in technology, business, marketing, finance, and law.
• Your office ought to explore the commercial potential of the inventions that cross your desk. You ought to ask: What is this product? Who will buy it?
• Technology marketing is the processes of identifying the desirable characteristics or benefits of a technology, identifying the technology’s potential users, and communicating the technology’s benefits clearly and compellingly to those users.
• It sometimes happens that market research conducted by a technology transfer office reveals that a technology can be used in a completely new and unexpected way, in a previously unanticipated market.