Thank you for your interest regarding our evaluation procedure for externally submitted suggestions. As a company we are, in principle, very happy to evaluate ideas against our specific business requirements, subject to the following conditions:-
- The idea must be novel
- The idea must be protected by a patent or be provisionally protected by a patent application
- The idea must be relevant to our core businesses
- The idea must eventually be economically viable from a manufacturing and marketing perspective
- The idea must in our opinion satisfy the needs of our customers
- We will only consider your proposal in open, that is non-confidential circumstances
As stated above, we will only consider ideas for which a patent has been applied. This, in our opinion, is the best way of ensuring that your intellectual property is afforded the utmost protection possible. If you have not yet applied for a patent in respect of your idea we would suggest that you contact your national Patent Office, or the European Patent Office. Information about these may be found at the European Patent Office web-site: www.epo.org
This procedure is to safeguard your rights by preventing you from making a ’public disclosure’ of your idea prior to seeking protection.
The decision to apply for a patent rests entirely with you and you should be aware that there is no guarantee either expressed or implied that Stanley Black & Decker will have any interest in your submission.
If you choose to apply for a Patent, we welcome you to submit your idea once you have received a filing receipt from the Patent Office. In these early stages you should send to us only a copy of your patent application to enable us to conduct our initial review on a non-confidential basis, as to its suitability or otherwise for our business. Make sure you also include your contact information (Name, Postal Address, Phone Number, and e-mail address) so that we may easily respond.
If you wish to get confirmation that your package has arrived at the mailing address below, please use a postal service with tracking or delivery confirmation capability. A formal response to your submission from Stanley Black & Decker will normally follow within 4-6 weeks, but no separate confirmation of delivery will be sent by us. ALL submissions from residents of the US or Canada should go through our online submission system – www.blackanddecker.com product ideas and should NOT be mailed to us.
We thank you for your interest shown to date and we assure you of our best attention at all times.
Yours sincerely
Barbara Davis
New Products/Inventions Coordinator
BLACK & DECKER ATTN: Barbara Davis
701 East Joppa Road, TW 075
Towson, MD 21286 USA