[Bouncing Back] Protect Your Idea

Notes from the session with Bill Thatcher.

There are two main ways to protect your ideas: the legal, enforceable way through Intellectual Property (IP) rights; or just by keeping them secret. Of course, the latter doesn’t work for all kinds of ideas, but also the former tends to favour bigger companies over small ones, as they can afford to pay the lawyers :-)

Some IP rights you gain automatically:

• Copyright
• Database rights

Others you have to register:

• Registered design rights
• Patents. It can be cheaper to file for a patent through European office than UK office (although that might be just because you get multiple countries at once and so is cheaper than doing each one individually). There are some ways to delay the costs involved, for example, sometimes the patent office has a backlog, so you don't need to pay until they're ready to proceed. For small companies the main (only even) value of a patent portfolio is to add value to the company in the eyes of investors or potential purchasers. Employees usually have to sign any inventions over to their employer and aren't necessarily suitably rewarded. They can claim compensation if their idea provides "great worth" to the company, but in practice no-one has ever won such a claim.