The Best Way to Sell a Patent: Broker, Market or Direct

Search for the best way to sell a patent and you get four answers: use a broker, list on a marketplace, run an auction, or approach buyers yourself. Every page arguing for one of those is published by somebody who sells it. That is not dishonesty, it is just where the incentive sits, and it leaves the seller with a menu instead of a decision.

The decision is simpler than the menu suggests, and it starts one step earlier than any of those pages begin.

Start with the market, not the channel

Selling a patent gets compared to selling a house constantly. The comparison breaks on the only number that matters. More than 90 percent of properties find buyers in the real estate secondary market, and more than 90 percent of patents do not transact at all.

It gets blunter. On a market basis, the value of roughly 99 percent of issued patents is zero, because an acquirer has no reason to take on maintenance and annuity costs for an asset nobody is infringing.

The mechanism behind both numbers is one sentence of patent law. A patent is a right to exclude. Selling it transfers the right to assert it, which means an uninfringed patent has little or no value until the industry catches up with the invention, because there is no exclusion value to buy.

So the channel question is the second question. The first one is whether you are holding something the market can price at all.

The one test that decides your route

Can you name a company, today, that is selling a product which reads on your independent claims, in volumes large enough to model?

Three possible answers, and each one points somewhere different.

Yes, and you can name them. You have a priced asset. Your problem is reach and process: getting the right person inside those companies to take the file seriously, and running a competitive process rather than a bilateral conversation. This is the case where representation earns its fee.

Plausible, but you cannot prove it. You suspect the claims are being practised but you have not mapped a single product to a single claim. Your problem is evidence, not distribution. Sending an unproven asset out to buyers burns the one first impression you get. Fix the evidence first.

No, and honestly not soon. Nothing is infringing and nothing looks likely to. No route sells this today at any commission rate. The live options are licensing to firms that want the technology rather than fear it, holding while the industry catches up, or letting it go. That last one turns the question into the renew, abandon or monetise decision instead of a sale.

Most sellers who spend a year on marketplaces with no offers were in the second or third category the whole time and were sold a distribution solution to an evidence problem.

What each route actually costs

Brokers

A broker analyses the asset, builds the marketing package, works its network of buyers and stays in until close. The industry runs on success fees, varying between 20 and 35 percent of transaction value depending on portfolio size and whether a retainer is paid upfront. Some structures add cash upfront: flat fees of USD 5,000 to 15,000 covering evaluation and marketing materials, success fees quoted at 15 to 35 percent, and hybrid arrangements, in an industry that is not heavily regulated.

The commission is not the real barrier. Access is. Traditional brokers are reported to apply minimum patent values of USD 500,000 to 1,000,000, to accept roughly 5 to 10 percent of what is submitted to them, to require exclusivity for 12 to 24 months, and to take 6 to 18 months to close. Read that as a filter, not a service level. Most patents sent to a broker are declined, and being declined is itself information about the asset.

Online marketplaces

A marketplace is a listing venue. You post, buyers browse, the platform takes listing fees and a share of the sale. It is the cheapest way to be visible and the weakest way to be found, because the platforms are buyer-centred, many listings are not professionally vetted, and inventory quality varies enough that serious buyers treat the pool with suspicion.

There is a fast test for whether a given marketplace is real. Search for patents for sale and see which platforms come back on the first page or two, because a listing on a site that genuine buyers never visit is a shop on a back street rather than a stall in the mall. Anyone can build a website and call it a patent marketplace.

The deeper issue is structural. Corporate IP teams managing thousands of patents do not browse listings. Their bottleneck is discovery of assets that fit a known gap, which is a push problem, and a listing is pull.

Auctions

An auction manufactures competitive tension where it exists. Ocean Tomo is the best known name in patent auctions, and it charges both buyer and seller, taking as much as 25 percent. A formal process runs a 60 to 90 day marketing period during which the package goes out under NDA, followed by a bidding round.

Auctions work when there are several credible buyers who would each rather own the asset than let a rival have it. With one plausible buyer, an auction advertises weakness: the bidder learns nobody else showed up.

Selling direct

No commission, no exclusivity, no intermediary. You keep everything and you do everything: identifying buyers, getting past the gatekeeper, positioning the asset, negotiating, and handling a patent purchase agreement that carries real legal and technical detail.

Direct sale is genuinely the right answer more often than the SERP admits, specifically when the buyer is obvious and already known to you. A supplier, a customer, a competitor that has approached you before. If the list of plausible buyers is short and you can already reach the people on it, you are paying a commission for a network you do not need.

Match the route to what you are holding

Prices give the brackets their shape. When patents do sell, narrow claims or assets near expiry go for USD 5,000 to 50,000, solid claims mapping to products already on the market fetch 100,000 to 500,000, and foundational technology in fields like semiconductors or wireless clears 500,000.

Set those against the broker minimums above and the routing falls out.

Above USD 500,000 with a named infringer. Represented sale, and an auction if several buyers are credible. The commission is arithmetic, not principle: a third of a sale that happens beats all of one that does not.

Roughly 100,000 to 500,000. The underserved middle. Brokers decline it because the economics of a 12 month campaign do not work at that fee, and marketplaces accept it and then do nothing. This band needs targeted outreach to a short list rather than either extreme, which is the gap most sellers fall into.

Under 100,000, or no infringement evidence. Do not pay anyone a retainer. Approach the two or three obvious companies directly, consider licensing instead of sale, and run the honest arithmetic against renewal costs. Sometimes the right answer is that the asset does not justify further spend, and reaching that conclusion in a month rather than three years is a real outcome.

Before any of this, be sure your price expectation comes from the market rather than a spreadsheet. That is a separate discipline, and it is worth understanding what a patent is actually worth to a buyer rather than to a report before you commit to a route at all.

Get the asset ready before you pick anyone

This work is route-independent, and it is what separates a package a buyer reads from one they skim and drop. Assemble the family listing with numbers, filing dates, expiry dates and jurisdictions; clean chain of title documentation from inventors through to the current owner; a plain-language summary of the independent claims; the maintenance fee history confirming good standing; a list of commercial products that appear to practise the claims; and any existing licences, covenants or encumbrances. Prosecution history and litigation exposure belong in there too.

Assume the buyer will also price validity risk, since studies indicate more than half of the patents in circulation would be invalidated if challenged. Every gap you leave in the package is a discount the buyer applies for you.

If the family is still in examination, the package looks different and so does the pricing, which is its own question: whether you can sell a patent that is still pending.

How we price the same problem

We run brokerage as an M&A process rather than a listing, so it is fair to state our own economics rather than talk around them. Commission is paid by the seller on completion, with a minimum fee of EUR 5,000 per completed transaction, and no sale means no fee. An optional retainer is credited on close.

Before an asset reaches a buyer it goes through a validation gate: physics-grade claim reconstruction, detectability analysis and validity probability, benchmarked at 0.76 percent mean absolute percentage error against real-world outcomes. Detectability is the part sellers underestimate. A claim you cannot prove is being practised is a claim you cannot price, which is the evidence problem from the test above, solved before outreach rather than during it.

Two limits, stated plainly. EX IX is not a firm of patent attorneys, and a novelty search does not guarantee grant or patentability; drafting and filing work goes through an independent licensed attorney of record. And nobody, us included, can promise a buyer. Best efforts is the only thing any intermediary can honestly guarantee.

How to vet whoever you choose

Four questions from the practitioner literature, and they work on any intermediary including us.

1. What is the track record, with specifics? Ask for recent transactions and references. Plenty of people describe themselves as selling patents and have close to no completed sales.
2. How many prospects will actually be contacted, and does the intermediary know them personally? Patent sales are relationship driven and a small network caps the outcome.
3. What technical and legal expertise sits on the team? Ask for a real sample of past marketing materials, including claim charts. Work outsourced cheaply to non-specialists shows immediately, and you get one real chance to present the asset.
4. How is the commission calculated, and what happens after the mandate ends? Tail periods are normal and mean a sale after termination can still owe a fee.

Then the warning signs: promises of high-value sales with no data behind them, thin marketing materials, no transparency about the buyer pool or the outreach process, and non-exclusive agreements carrying high upfront fees, which signals a party being paid whether or not it works. The fee model tells you where the incentive points, and it is worth knowing exactly what patent brokers charge and what the commission buys before signing anything.

FAQ

Do I need a broker to sell my patent? No. Direct sale and marketplaces both exist, and most brokers will decline a patent below their minimum value anyway. Representation earns its fee when the buyer pool is small, identifiable and reachable only through relationships you do not have.

How long does selling a patent take? Broker-run processes are commonly quoted at six to eighteen months, and a formal auction adds a marketing period of two to three months before bids arrive. Weeks of silence after outreach is normal, since companies that buy patents receive a lot of solicitations.

Can I list the same patent on several platforms at once? On marketplaces, usually yes. A broker mandate typically requires exclusivity for twelve to twenty-four months, so check the term and the tail period before signing, because a sale that closes shortly after the mandate ends can still owe commission.

Should I sell or license instead? Sale suits assets outside your core business, maturing technology, or a need for immediate cash. Licensing suits widely practised technology with several potential licensees, provided you can fund enforcement and manage the programme over the remaining life.

Can I sell only part of a patent? Yes. Rights can be carved by territory, by industry or by field of use, and partial interests can be assigned. A carve-out often finds a buyer where a whole-asset sale stalls, because it lets a buyer pay for only the exposure it needs.