Idea Protection

[OneSource]

Hi.

If I develop a new program in VB based on an idea that no one else is doing, is it possible to protect the idea? If so, how? Is it worth the effort to try to protect it?

For example, why didn't Netscape (Mosaic) patent the "browser" idea since they were the first to implement it? Or why didn't the people at Napster get some kind of copyright concerning their software's operation?

Any and all comments, thoughts and suggestions are welcome.

Thanks.

[[92]_fs]

There must be some kindda, legal act of copyrights thing somewhere. You can always check after it in your phonebook.

And about the Napster thing; I think the founder of Napster knew that he wouldn´t get permission to launch the Napster project if he tryed to get a copyright on it.

[OneSource]

Anybody else have any thoughts?

[parksie]

you can patent the way that you achieve something, not what you achieve. this is what EMU did with the EMU8000 - they patented their method, but they didn't stop anyone else from making wavetable chips.

[OneSource]

for your insights.

Anyone else want to weigh in with their thoughts and opinions?

You cannot patent an idea, but you can get intellectual properity rites to the look of your program, specific coding techniques etc.

Mosiac was developed pre www and was in the public domain.

Apple managed to hold onto their OS ideas by making them non open....and of course MS now dominates.

[OneSource]

Thanks for your reply, although I'm not sure what you meant by Mosaic ... was in the public domain.

Based on the responses, it doesn't seem like it's worth the trouble to try to protect my idea. I just have to make the program so wonderful and complex-looking, that no one would bother to try to reproduce it. :)

Thanks again.

Public Domain = Freeware, the developers gave the product away for free. Never applied for a patent, therefore other parties could step in. Lotus tried to sue MS for using 123 as a basis for excel, and lost heavily.

My Wifes an artist and she gets her ideas ripped off all the time. Next to impossible to claim intellectual property over a pattern........

Yeap leap out with your product, and keep cannabilising it with new releases. That way you get a standard and keep ahead of your competitors. Has worked brilliantly for Microsoft.

[OneSource]

Nothing more to say.

[noone]

If you want to see a perfect example of patents going to far check out this:
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,37095,00.html

[zmerlinz]

hi,

the best way to protect your ideas is to keep them in your head and not to tell anyone ?

confused (i am ?)

Merlin ?

[Gen-X]

As someone has said before you cannot patent an idea... in fact you cannot even really patent a process.

Case 1 :

I will have something that looks like an arrow on the screen that moves when I move a piece of plastic around a flat surface... I will call it a "mouse".

This is an "idea"... you can't patent it.

Case 2 :

If I take one number and I use the process of addition to another number then I come up with a third number.

This is a "process"... you can't patent it.

Just look at Compuserve and their attempt to "patent" the GIF format.... it failed miserably.

There are also things like "methods" such as bubble sort, binary b-trees, travelling salesman algorithms etc, etc...

None of these can be patented because they are really "ideas" on how to go about solving something.... You can however write something that works exactly LIKE a bubble sort, give each of the different stages very PRECISE names and then patent the whole thing.

What you have done is actually placed a "copywrite", which means nobody can copy your code but they can try and replicate it themselves (known as reverse engineering). As long as the new program is more than 10% different in "touch and feel" to the original then you really don't have a claim for infringement.


The best thing for you to do is to get the idea in motion FIRST. If nobody has ever come up with it before... and it is something everyone wants to do then you will make your money and "get out" before other people duplicate your work and try and cash in on the market.

If you come up with the worlds first video phone you make your cash and when the market gets saturated you pull out and go onto something else.