How to protect the idea for a website?

donfers

Hi there,

I have an idea for a new website that I believe is truly unique, it may tank or take off but I want to give it a go. The thing is I am not great at the coding/development side of things so I would need to find a developer/web designer that is capable of delievering the website I want.

I can map out the site on paper, it would require members to log on and a large database. But here is the thing, how do I protect my idea...imagine I contact a few designers/developers and tell them about my idea and then I'm told to get bent, they can't do it or whatever, and then I see the idea for my site emerge in a few years. I'm not saying this is going to be like the situation in the facebook movie where people are sueing left, right and centre as I am a realist and have absolutely no aspirations of delivering a site on that scale. Basically I just want to give this site a go but to make sure my idea isn't stolen as honestly I have researched this and have as yet, not found any site that delivers what my site hopefully will deliver. So registering the domain name is not a problem, but how do I go about sagfeguarding the intellectual property rights behind my site, do I have to get a patent or something? What measures should I take to protect my idea before getting into bed with developers/designers or even sharing the idea with them?

Mr. Loverman

Not the answer you're looking for, but good ideas are two-a-penny these days.

Success will come from implementing it properly and having a clever marketing strategy.

So honestly I wouldn't be too worried about someone stealing your idea.

Think of it like this: someone can steal your idea as soon as your website is live. If they're better marketers than you, they will be more successful.

donfers

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

Not the answer you're looking for, but good ideas are two-a-penny these days.

Success will come from implementing it properly and having a clever marketing strategy.

So honestly I wouldn't be too worried about someone stealing your idea.

Think of it like this: someone can steal your idea as soon as your website is live. If they're better marketers than you, they will be more successful.

fair point and I accept everything you have said but surely there must be some procedure to protect yourself before you get down to the nitty-gritty

Goodshape

Might get a better response to this on the legal discussion forum. I'd agree with Loverman myself... it's all in the execution. Everyone has ideas.

donfers

Goodshape wrote: »

Might get a better response to this on the legal discussion forum. I'd agree with Loverman myself... it's all in the execution. Everyone has ideas.

the idea and the execution as far as I'm concerned are mutually inclusive....fella's if nobody can answer the query here then feel free to move to legal forum, thanks goodshape for the pointer

ron_darrell

Interesting that you've received an answer but are not happy with it. The thing about the web is that once it's out there for everyone can see it.

You are in need of a service, that is the development of your idea into a working website. Assuming you go to a reputable web design company, it's extremely unlikely they'll take your 'idea' and try and run it themselves - it's not their line of work and to be honest the return on a 'good idea' website can be bad or nothing at all depending on how it takes off and this as has been pointed out depends entirely on the marketing.

As has also been pointed out, assuming you did find a way to bind your developer to a confidentiality and non-interference contract once it's live on the web there's very little that can be done to prevent someone either reverse engineering the site, replicating the site or providing the same service in a more appealing manner, all of which would reduce your revenue.

It would probably be more cost effective for you to stop worrying that some developer will 'rip off' your idea and instead spend more time deciding how to market and earn revenue from the idea once it's live. If you feel unable to trust anyone to develop this idea for you then the only option is to go learn the necessary skills yourself to develop and deploy the site.

Regards
-RD

the_syco

ron_darrell wrote: »

As has also been pointed out, assuming you did find a way to bind your developer to a confidentiality and non-interference contract once it's live on the web there's very little that can be done to prevent someone either reverse engineering the site, replicating the site or providing the same service in a more appealing manner, all of which would reduce your revenue.

Grabbing a website is a piece of cake, so worry about how it runs, not how it looks. I change a few words, a box into a circle, and suddenly it's not your site. It's mine.

KJF

"Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats." --Howard Aitken

I read this the other day...

No one cares about your idea. Not even your mom (I know she said she does, but she was just being nice).

Anyone with the skill to clone your idea and the motivation to actually make it happen is way too busy with the 37 ideas they have every day to bother taking yours. And if someone does steal it before you launch, consider it a favour.

Having your idea stolen sooner saves you the hassle of building it, only to have someone steal it then. If it’s that easy to steal it’s going to happen one way or the other.

Remember, ideas are worth nothing.

You and I could get together and clone almost any popular web application in a month. Or for that matter, we could simply buy a clone script. Twitter, Facebook, eBay, Groupon, Digg, and about 50 others are available for around €100 each.

No, these days even technical execution is mostly trivial (with a few exceptions for apps built around unique algorithms). Far more important is marketing execution. If you can out-market someone, you can make your code public and still kick the crap out of anyone.

Ideas (and in most cases even the code itself) is worth little. It’s marketing that makes the startup.

tomED

As someone who always discusses new online ventures with potential customers, I can categorically say that I have never had any interest in going off and developing their idea.

This isn't because all the ideas are poor, I've seen some really good ones. The reality is that most of the good ones will take quite of time to develop and bring them to a level worth marketing.

On top of that, most ideas need a lot of time to market, nevermind captial. Time and capital that most web companies wouldn't have. Like every business, if you want it to be a success, you need to give it time and throw some money at it.

Most web development companies will know the sheer amount of work required to make a website a success and generally it isn't worth the risk for most to bother with.

If you're still worried about your idea being stolen after reading this, you could of course opt to get the developer to sign a non disclosure agreement. But it's really not worth the paper its printed on.

mneylon

Terrible ideas, badly executed, but marketed well can (and have) succeeded.
Great ideas, well executed, but marketed badly fail all the time.

You can get people to sign NDAs until the cows come home, but once the site / service is live there is nothing to stop someone from cloning it (as has already been mentioned)

The only thing that can make a real difference is if you have something that nobody else has ie. a "secret sauce"

jmcc

Uniqueness is a variable. You don't know that your idea is unique and the web is very big.

Ideas are easy but execution is hard.

Most people completely underestimate the amount of work and marketing necessary to make a site a success.

By all means get a legal opinion and a pile of NDAs but the reality is that you are just wasting time while someone else might be implementing the idea that you thought was unique.

Regards...jmcc