Protecting an idea?

Cianos

Hi,
I am about to start putting designs together for a new site. The only problem is, while I believe it is a very strong idea, it is quite open to being copied and trampelled over by more established sites. How does one go about protecting an idea. Are patents the way to go? is there any company/firm that specialise in advising on what to do with an idea and how to make the most out of it?

Cheers

Mike...

Sell it to google they will patent it to the hilt

I'd contact a solicitor as a start.

tomED

Is this just a graphic design or something functional?

Cianos

tomED wrote:

Is this just a graphic design or something functional?

It's a concept for a website/service. Something that I intend on having built very shortly

Ph3n0m

Cianos wrote:

It's a concept for a website/service. Something that I intend on having built very shortly

Well unless its entirely unique concept, that has never been done before, and is entirely unique in its approach, etc, then you are not going to have much luck in protecting the idea

For example

myspace - offers social networking
bebo - offers social networking

download.com - offers file downloads
tucows.com - offers file downloads

Cianos

Yeah. Well, its not necessarily a totally unique concept, but its unique in so far as its taking a current service and putting a new slant on it.

I am trying to figure out a way of securing it to some extent...maybe adding some kind of catch that I CAN protect, thus protecting it as a whole.

Ph3n0m

Well to me, the only way to protect an idea, is not to talk about it on a public forum. And only do so when you are ready for people to find it/use it.

After that, well its a case of wait and see if anyone else is going to come along and do something similiar

Cianos

Ph3n0m wrote:

and do something similiar

Yeah. I'll be careful with it until I am ready to release it. My main worry is that the larger more established sites will just see what I'm doing, say 'hey we can do that', and overnight my efforts are quashed. So, the only way I can see myself protecting it are either getting a good headstart against the big boys, getting legal patenting, or adding some unique element that restricts them from doing the same.

pwd

I made the website weighttrainingwiki.com/wtwiki.com (now dead), and submitted it to a few directories etc and put in some info. Enough work that it would come up if you googled weight training and wiki or similar, but I never got around to promoting it properly or trying to build a userbase.
At the time there was no wikis about this specific subject and a there is a lot of misinformation from people flogging stuff on the subject on the web, and a lot of people interested in the subject too. So I thought a resource like this would be viable, with some revenue from google ads - and I did have a fair few visitors considering I didn't promote the site much, and a good click-through-rate.
Anyway a while ago I decided yeah the idea was viable enough and probably could be developed into a moderately successful site, so I decided to polish it up and promote it, try to build a userbase etc, after having left it fairly dormant for some months.
I googled weight training and wiki and found another very established site now included a wiki, which was almost identical to mine in layout etc. So I abandoned the idea and was irritated.
I'm rambling a bit, but my point is that although you probably can't prevent people robbing the idea, you can try your best to establish your brand quickly before someone else does. If you publicise your site before it is "ready" then it is fairly easy for someone with more resources to nip in and start promoting the same idea before you establish your own site.
Essentially: Don't publicise your site until it is ready and polished and then advertise it very quickly to get your brand established. That way a copy of the site is less feasible, since your own site will be more recognisable than the imitator.

McSandwich

The Irish Patents Office website has lots of useful information about this:

http://www.patentsoffice.ie/en/student_property.aspx

pwd

Software patents is a very controversial subject, as many see it as standing in the way of progress.
It's unlikely you would be able to stop someone copying your idea through patents or copyright.

janmc

One thing to mention (though it's probably very obvious!) is to go to a solicitor/consultant with a background in this area. Going to someone who specialises in patents might not necessarily help if they don't understand about digital info copyrighting.

But like the others have said - marketing is the key. It is so easy to copy someone else's work and have it on your site quickly that before you had time to challenge it, they could have got the marketshare. Remember recently there was something in the news about the property sites being crawled by a 3rd party site that let you search all the sites in one go? I'm fuzzy on the details but I think myhome got an injunction (or insert proper legal term here) against them. Could be worth checking out the legal team involved, or at least checking the details.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

So go on what's the idea then?:D

Cianos

janmc wrote:

One thing to mention (though it's probably very obvious!) is to go to a solicitor/consultant with a background in this area.

How would I go about finding a solicitor/consultant who specialises in this type of thing?

Cianos

sean_keevey wrote:

So go on what's the idea then?:D

Check your PM's

(joke)

janmc

Cianos wrote:

How would I go about finding a solicitor/consultant who specialises in this type of thing?

You could try some lecturers in the law departments of the universities or maybe contact digitalrights.ie and see if they can recommend someone. It's not exactly their area, but chances are they could at least suggest someone, either with a law or technology background. I'd just be wary of going into a solicitor who knows nothing about intellectual property because it could be expensive.

I'll send you a PM with some more info.

phil

Good ideas alone aren't enough: implementation, branding, publicity etc. is key. Your good idea might easily be squashed by big competitors if the barrier to entry is low. However, if you think this is a likelihood, give yourself enough of a headstart that you can never look back and say "I could have done that better".

You could waste a lot of money going to solicitors about this to get zero protection. If I were you, I wouldn't bother, but that's just me and I'm stingey with my money!

Phil.

janmc

*mono* wrote:

Sell it to google they will patent it to the hilt

If this relates to what you do, this is probably the best suggestion