Though I don't have any personal experience dealing with this in the real world, I do have an answer for those with access to an academic institution. Usually, the big research universities (in the U.S. that I know of) have a technology transfer department and they can be very resourceful. Of course, this depends highly on your university...

And if your university has a business school, they might be helpful too.

I'd love to see this answered. Unfortunately, it'd need a different answer for every country (I'm in Germany).

Yes, I needed to clarify this would be for the U.S. Thanks.