Many inventors trying to get their product ideas to market are totally crushed by rejection. So, I thought I’d provide a list of some of the reasons it might have been rejected. It doesn’t cover all the reasons you might be rejected, but hopefully it will give you something to think about.
You must realize that inventing is fundamentally a numbers game! Yes, you still need to have a good idea, but you will find that no matter how good an idea you may think it is, it can still be rejected. Many marketable ideas are rejected all the time. Even if it doesn’t make sense for you to reject an idea that you agree would be profitable. These are some of the common reasons why even marketable ideas are rejected.
1. The company may already have a full product line and don’t want to add more.
2. The product is out of your target market.
3. You sent your shipment to the wrong person at the company; don’t assume they’ll automatically send it to the right person.
4. You submitted the unsolicited idea without first contacting the company about their submission policy, and they rejected it solely on that basis.
5. You did not have the proper contact information on your submission. (That’s one of the biggest mistakes inventors make. The company won’t bother to locate it.)
6. They have too many similar products and that market is flooded enough.
7. Your idea appeals to a very small niche and they want mass market items.
8. Manufacturing cost versus return on investment is too high.
9. Their sales sheet did not surprise them and lacked information on consumer benefits or was overloaded with too much information to review.
10. Your product has already been patented by someone else and they don’t want to see if they can circumvent it or risk infringement problems.
11. Your product or idea is no better than what is already on the market. This tells them that you didn’t research your idea very well and that you have no idea who your competition is in the market.
12. Feel a product that is exactly the same as your current product and that the current product is a marginal seller. So yours won’t fare better.
13. Your idea is out of date or down compared to what will come out the following year.
14. They already have a better solution than yours in the works for release next year. (This is also where inventors can yell that the company stole their idea even when the company has already invested in molds, engineering, samples, etc. before the inventor contacts the company about their idea. This happens often. Inventors forget that they are not the only ones inventing.)
15. They have already received a similar idea from another Inventor and are in negotiations with that Inventor.
16. You have posted your idea without protection online on one of those invention publishing sites where others vote on your product to see if there is interest. Its public disclosure causes the company to worry about whether any patent protection would be allowed and rejects it based on that issue.
17. You posted your idea and unprotected video of the working prototype on YouTube and got a significant number of views. This again raises the concern of whether any patents would be possible due to their public disclosure.
18. You stated that you have an issued patent, but when they do a quick search on your patent, they see that it has expired due to non-payment of fees and that it has expired significantly after the expiration date. Making the chances of it reestablishing unlikely.
19. You have a patent, but it is poorly written and does not cover the actual product. (This happens a lot)
20. You have a design patent and designing around your patent is a simple task, which means that you can expect very little protection in the marketplace.
21. Sometimes the company you have approached simply does not look at outside ideas and does not disclose that fact. Then you get a rejection letter, but it doesn’t explain that they just don’t look outside the company.
22. You sent them your product but they have already decided on your line for that year or the following year and are not open to accepting anything else at that time.
23. They only consider items with a sales history that they can review and your item has never been in production or sold in stores or online. So they don’t want to risk being the first company to market it.
As I said earlier, these are just some of the reasons why a company may reject your idea / product. Really take the time to research and understand your market, your place in that market, and do your part to be as commercial as possible.
