Manufacturing an Invention
Most inventors prefer to come up with a great idea, then sell that great idea to someone else—the licensee. The search for a licensee turns into a Catch-22 situation similar to that of looking for your first job. That is, you need experience to get a job, but you can’t get a job without experience. It is sometimes difficult for the first-time, independent inventor to license his or her invention without a proven track record to show potential invention without a proven track record to show potential licensees. If you could just get one company to nibble, you’d have swarms of consumers looking to bite; but alas, that first nibble takes a lot of bait.
When would-be licensees bow out one by one, you have two choices: drop the idea altogether, or find a manufacturer or distribute the product yourself. Former nurses Pandora Reese of Glen Burnie, Maryland and Ida Scott of Washington, D.C., took the latter route to sell their invention Murling Magic, after striking out with potential licensees.
As nurses, Reese and Scott had to contend with bulky equipment used in patient care. In 1990, they hit upon the idea of storing the items in a self-sealing bag that would supplement the traditional patient hanging file folder. Once Reese and Scott had developed the product, they began approaching possible licensees.
By January, 1991, the third o their three leading potential licensees had turned them down. “They told us they weren’t in the business of manufacturing bags, but if we got the bags manufactured, they would buy the product from us,” explains Reese.
With would-be licensees out of the picture, Reese and Scott, operating under the name Murling Corp., set out to find a manufacturer. “The first thing we did was look under “Manufacturer” and “Plastic Products” in the telephone directory to see if there were any manufacturers in our state we could meet with,” says Reese. After coming up empty, she went to her local library and pored through the Thomas Register (Thomas Publishing), a multivolume listing of manufacturers that includes product descriptions, company profiles and samples of the companies’ catalogs.
Doing It Right
Reese and Scott started off on the right foot. They could have taken it a step further by taking a real, hands-on approach to finding the right manufacturer for your invention. If your product is in the hardware line, for example, go to a hardware store and look over various items to see who manufactures them.
Start your search by making a list of possible manufacturers. From there, it’s simply a matter of asking the right questions—and getting the right answers from the companies.
Unfortunately, manufacturers often give independent inventors the cold shoulder—not because the idea is bad or the presentation is poor, but because the manufacturer has had bad experiences with independent inventors. Hayes says many inventors approach a manufacturer expecting it to be thrilled because this “can’t miss” proposition has been dropped at the company’s doorstep. Often manufacturers come to the conclusion that dealing with an uninformed and inexperienced inventor could be more of a headache to a manufacturer than it’s worth.