The Company
It’s one thing to make a product. It’s another to find a way to distribute it. IdeaBuyer.com has allowed its over 50,000 members to buy, sell, or licence patents, connecting inventors, companies, universities, and distributors through the exchange of intellectual property.
Eric Corl founded this internet company in 2007, launching it while still in college at Ohio State University. The idea was born when he realized that there was a great disconnect between intellectual property and commercialization – new ideas were falling into black holes of unnecessary costs and time as their owners were attempting to push them toward the market. Putting school on hold, Corl decided that he would make a website where these ideas could reach the right distribution channels quickly. He dedicated his full focus to this company and brought it from its modest beginnings to its current size. With only a few employees, Idea Buyer is now the largest marketplace for intellectual property.
Eric Corl’s Background
Corl said that he learned the importance of hard work through the time he spent at his family’s manufacturing business. Entrepreneurship was not a topic of discussion for them, it was simply a way of life. He took the skills he learned there into his innovative career.
Idea Buyer is a great addition to the intellectual property world, which is at once both extremely important and hugely confusing. Taking the time to try and make patent trading smoother is something I applaud.