Why would you sell your rights?
In case of a patent or trademark, the obvious answer is to get paid for it in assignment fees and royalties. You worked hard to create and register such rights and it has cost you time and money. Some others can better develop and use these than you. They make profits thereof and reward you for that privilege. They pay you upfront for your talent and expenses and all long pay you royalty for using your ideas. This is true and fair, whether you are an individual or member of an institution, which has rules for intellectual property ownership of employees, officers and their shared rights to transfer such rights.
Some enterprises may want to acquire your patent rights not for making and selling product as per your specifications but to shelve your ideas to exclude competition. They will not tell you about their intent, but you end up without a royalty payment stream. Your upfront fee may be your only consolation then. Thus writing a licensing agreement is better left to professionals. We at RightsEXchange are not lawyers and cannot advise you on what rights, when, how, whom and why should list in this website to barter or sell. Yet some of us have expertise and experience in this field. In recognition of the need to means in facilitating the exchange of rights of brad categories for a small flat listing fee, we created this website.
You may be inclined to say, I better be careful, not to sell my ideas to be shelved. You may say that, because you want to see it happened. You do not want to invent to libraries but for real people, whose life you wish to improve. You cannot even imagine that you may do that even if some entities shelve your idea under your license, you may still serve the public, one way or the other. Shelving has its own economic value in a subtle yet indirect way. It can sustain a monopoly for a while, but only if that firm provides excellent products and services. Otherwise it will be short leaved one.
Sometimes the licensing role in economy is stealth to the licensor. For instance, company QuickGrow licenses from investor EasySell a patent for $ 1 million, for it is untested and thus may turn out to be worthless after all. Yet it is very promising and thus worth that risk for the fee paid for it, say as a lump sum. Then QuickGrow deducts from its tax liabilities $ 1 million as losses or investment in research and development. QuickGrow then contracts CarefulExaminer who values the patent worth $ 10 million. QuickGrow then reports this to its shareholders as a $ 9 million gain, which then boosts its share price. Yet, it shelves the idea, knowing that it can be sub-licensed for $ 10 million. It considers it as instant asset gain by act of God or sheer luck. The boosted company value now helps QuickGrow to grow quick, providing its useful products and services to the public. EasySell’s contribution was indirect, but useful.
Patents are easy to understand examples. Some other rights can be even obscure or controversial, yet can make money to its owner. Some of these are hardly known to exist. You may need to study law to learn about non-possessory interest in land, for instance. You may not even aware, what kind of social rights you may have, which you may transfer temporarily or permanently to others for some considerations, without hurting yourself. There is a large, yet incomplete, list of such and other rights under the CATEGORIES tab in this website. Most of them are hyperlinked to authorative explanations in other websites, which opens in a new window, so may not get lost before list your rights for sale. Learn about some, which you think can help you financially, once you decide to sell them. List those here and you may be happily surprised to see how many buyers contact you in short order. Then you pick and choose.