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How to find manufacturers for your ideas and inventions

Postby tony.fulford » Wed Jan 16, 2008 9:52 am

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I see a lot of post for people looking for manufacturers for their ideas and inventions. I thought it worthy of posting a topic here.

http://ThomasNet.com is the home of the Thomas Register and is the best source you have for locating manufacturers. Select the Product/Service tab (default) and enter your product search argument(s) and it will return a list of hits by category. Go through the returned hits looking for Manufacturer.

You can email some of the companies directly from their listing. If they do not have the E-mail selection in their listing, select Company Profile: and if they have a website, it will be listed there.

Go to their website and look for the Contact information to determine if you can email them from their website. If all this fails, contact them by telephone or snail mail.

If you have and idea or Provisional Application for Patent, be sure to have a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) or Confidentiality Agreement (CA) in place, if possible, before discussing it with a company. Many companies will require that you sign a waiver. You must decide if you wish to do that. I have not experienced any problems by signing a waiver, but that is not to say you would not with a company. To view a typical waiver, go to:

http://www.blackanddecker.com/CustomerC ... Ideas.aspx

and select one of the Policy and Conditions documents.

If you have an issued patent, give them the patent number. The patent is public knowledge anyway.

Let us all know how it works out for you?

Postby Infrafred » Wed Feb 13, 2008 9:51 am

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Tony,


Also try:

http://www.manta.com/

this also gives contact names Like the CEO or Chairman of the Board.Also lists
What the Company makes(money),how many employess,other locations
link to website.Good Marketing info

So far I have recieved six respones by sending letters to the CEO
Since my first letters sent out on Jan 8 ,2008

Some had Idea Submission that are hard to find on there Websites

Postby tony.fulford » Wed Feb 13, 2008 1:37 pm

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Infrafred

Thanks, that is one that I was not aware of and I hope it will help me and others here.

Postby CriterionD » Wed Feb 13, 2008 5:33 pm

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Some other methods (which can be used in conjunction with or in addition to others:

Press Releases - Many press releases contain quotes from managers and such within a company. Find a press release announcing a new product in the same field as yours, and you will often find the name of a relevant contact (and their exact title).

Annual Reports - A company's annual report is often made available somewhere on its website in PDF format. These reports will not only include detailed financials, but many will also include a page listing anywhere between 5 and 50 executive/manager names and titles.

Reference USA - This database will allow you to search for companies and it will provide full contact info along with executive names and annual sales. I'm not sure that the executive listings will be as solid as those provided by Hoovers, but this database can often be accessed for free through a public library, and results can also be extracted into spreadsheet format 10-25 companies at a time if desired.

Dunn&Bradstreet's Selectory Database - This is the best business database out there. Its extensive, you can fully customize search criteria, it is a good source of contact names (as good or better than Hoovers), and search results can be extracted into a spreadsheet 100 at a time. Thats said I'm pretty sure its more expensive than Hoovers.

Postby Michelle » Wed Feb 13, 2008 11:40 pm

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If you can get your hands on it somehow, LES or Licensing Executives Society has a directory of every executive that is in the business of licensing for many of the major companies in the US.

Great resource but though to find.

Postby Infrafred » Thu Feb 14, 2008 5:43 am

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Michelle,

That would be Gold!

Can you find it on the Web??

Also do you need to pay a Fee to access it?

Does anybody have a Link??

Is this it?

http://www.usa-canada.les.org/

Postby Average Inventor » Thu Feb 14, 2008 10:36 am

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Michelle,

Great idea! I'm sure if you could grab that then it would make this site an even better launching platform. I think everyone could benefit from the names on that list. Thanks for throwing it out there.

Postby Infrafred » Thu Feb 14, 2008 3:48 pm

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I think you may have to join to get that list.

I see Rochester Institute of Technology belongs to that Group

Very nice.

I live in Rochester,I may try to Contact them about this. 8)

Postby melluc » Thu Jul 10, 2008 5:31 pm

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CD,
Thank you for the info about checking annual reports. I may have found my connect at Target----well I hope----we'll see.
Thanks so much,
Melodee

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