Yet another effective way of assessing the business and commercial value of patents is to assign each patent to a business unit that either is already using the patented technology in its products or intends to use the patents in the future. The results can be displayed as shown in the “Patent Use Map” figure.  This figure is a grid map in which the business units are grouped along the vertical axis according to their growth rate compared to a country’s GDP, and along the horizontal axis the patents are grouped according to whether they are being used in a unit’s current operating plan, in a future strategic plan, or no plan at all. Patents that are essential to a high-growth business unit are far more valuable than patents that are used merely in middle-growth units, for obvious reasons they are key to a venture that could bring in more profit. You now have basic map that broadly outlines which patents have the greatest and most direct commercial value, those which might be more suitable for licensing to generate revenues, and those which can simply be abandoned to reduce maintenance costs.