Where can you submit your ideas for money?

You can submit your ideas to businesses who are searching for new ideas to make the next best thing. ThinkGeek.com offers $250 in cash or $300 in gift certificates if they act on your ideas. Another company is Innocentive.com and like Think Geek is rewards you for invention ideas, the company also up to a million dollars for creative solutions to problems in business, enterprise, chemistry, engineering and science.

Another option you have is contacting companies direct with your invention ideas. You should make a list of 20 reputable companies that would find your idea useful and contact them direct with a prototype of your invention. You should ask them to sign a non-disclosure agreement just in case your idea is leaked. You can then sell your idea and live off royalty payments.

The final option is patenting your idea and then selling it on the open market. A patent is a contract which gives you exclusive rights which are granted by the state to an inventor over a fixed period of time in exchange for disclosure of the invention. You should do a patent search on Google Patent to see if your invention already exists. If it doesn't then you could patent the idea and offer it to companies that might the invention useful. Patenting your ideas is relatively straightforward, check out the video below for more information.

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