A workshop publishes the design of a small wind-powered pump. Another workshop can copy the drawings, but a customer may still prefer the original team because it can build reliably, install the equipment, and keep it working. The sale concerns more than possession of the design.
US manufacturing firms reported using manufacturing and marketing capabilities to capture returns from invention, alongside secrecy, lead time, and patents. Owning a discovery and having the capacity to earn from it can be quite different advantages.
What remains worth buying?
The useful question is what stays valuable after the information spreads. It may be hard-to-reproduce production skill, dependable distribution, or a continuing service. Open licensing can make the design reusable while contracts organize paid work around it. Subscriptions can support a genuinely continuing service, rather than merely renaming a one-off sale.
This route is weaker when rivals can reproduce the entire offering quickly and cheaply. It can also reward a well-equipped distributor more than the person who made the discovery. An inventor may need a partnership or a share of the enterprise to benefit from capabilities they do not personally own.
These strategies offer an alternative or complement to patent income: earning from making knowledge useful, without assuming that publishing knowledge automatically creates a sustainable business.