Ignore "OPEN INNOVATION"

Just find the right company(ies) for your invention. Then try and find a way to make a presentation.

If you look only for "Open Innovation" you're likely to miss the best opportunities.

The term "Open Innovation" is thrown around a lot in the invention world. It means that a company is open to working with outside inventors. More specifically, it means a company has SAID that it is open to working with outside inventors. Companies that have open doors commonly make things easy with online submission forms and easy to find contact information. Most all TV product companies have open doors. Some large corporations do too. Those doors are the easiest to walk through, you don't even have to knock.

But they aren't always the best. The open door you walk through deposits you in a big waiting room where it is hard to be noticed.

A much better way to get a licensing deal is to enter through a side door by contacting a person who would directly benefit from commercializing your product. In a small company that could be the owner or president. In a large one it could be the product manager for a line of similar products. Some companies make it hard or even impossible to reach that person. Some companies, like Apple, are aggressively closed to receiving innovations from independent inventors. There are times when you might want (or need) to fight to get into those companies. But there are almost always equally good or better options.

The #1 thing to pay attention to is fit. Is your invention a good fit for the company? Even a company that is officially closed to licensing inventions from outside inventors might be open to a deal if the invention is a great fit and they are approached in a creative way. If you have a fantastic invention with strong IP that you know will generate meaningful profits and/or grab market share from a company's competitors, then someone in that company will want to know about it.

BTW - Invention City is an Open Innovation company. Our door is wide open, but you need to do some homework.

- Mike