The important thing to realize is that you need to actively enforce your patents. The law generally does not consider patent infringement to be a criminal matter. Criminal offences are automatically prosecuted by the state, for example by a public prosecutor.

Patent infringements are treated as a civil matter.This means that you need to actively look our for patent infringers and file lawsuits against them. Enforcing your patent rights is your responsibility.

To effectively make money off your patents, you will need to market your invention to companies who will have use for it. You will also need to sign royalty agreements with these companies and collect your royalties. Some inventors set up companies to do this.

You will also need to have a means of suing patent infringers. This involves a fair amount of time and effort, and of course money. For this reason, some patents are economically unprofitable even if they are useful. For example, an electrical socket adapter invention may be extremely useful and take the market by storm, but if it is impossible to stop the thousands of small manufacturers who may illegally manufacture copies, then the economic value of the patent is questionable.