About 9 in 10 unsolicited invention submissions get rejected before a single engineer reads them, and most of the rejected pile never had a chance because the inventor sent the wrong package to the wrong person on the wrong day. This guide explains how the submission...
A consumer products company in the upper Midwest received 1,847 unsolicited invention submissions in 2025. They reviewed 1,847 of them. They progressed 41 to a second round. They signed 4. That hit rate (about 0.2 percent) holds across most companies that publish a...
A category buyer at a top-five US mass retailer reviews 1,200 to 1,800 new products a year and selects 40 to 80 for testing. That ratio (about 3 to 5 percent acceptance) sets the bar for any inventor whose product reaches a retail buyer meeting. The inventors who get...
A licensing scout in the housewares category confirmed last month what experienced product development firms have long known: she can name the inventor on three of every twelve pitches she reviews. The other nine arrive as faceless products from anonymous senders. The...
Industry licensing scouts at the major housewares trade shows now schedule pitch reviews in 8-minute windows. Eight minutes per inventor, 50 inventor meetings across two days, then a 30-day decision window after the show. Inside that 8 minutes, the buyer has to absorb...
