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How does one protect an idea?

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prawn_86

Mod: Call me Dendrobranchiata
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Hi all,

So i have got an idea that i think may make a business opportunity one day. However at this stage it is just an idea as the product would require a fair bit of IT type programming etc which i would not be able to do myself. Also capital which i dont currently have.

Question is, how does one go about protecting an idea? Does it mean when you hire people to work on the project you get them to sign confidentiallity agreements? Patents? Copywrite? All of the above?

Is there any way you can just sell an 'idea' to a company? I would think not as you have no proof it was yours
 

If it's already up and running you automatically have some protection but an idea doesnt fit that criteria.
It also depends what country you are in and if you wish to protect it wordwide.
I dont think it's possible but the only way to get a worthwhile answer is to see a lawyer.

You would need to show that you had done some considerable work on it and it was unique to you then you may be able to try to copyright it, but once again.........a lawyer.
 

All of the above.

I note your in Adelaide.
I have used Collison and Co in the past.
First step is to have a thorough check to be sure "Your" idea isn't "Someone else's" Idea.
 
Look at it in reverse, if you could protect an idea, I might copyright the idea for coffee flavoured soft drink then if anyone ever tries it I cash in, mmmmm not a bad idea.

No ......so you can see from that it's not really practical in real life.
 
Hi Prawn,

I could put you on to a patent attourney that my company has used if you like - I would nail your idea down in a document before you start talking to anyone. Patents are expensive, you can get provisional patents wheby you have 12 months to get someone to put your idea into production before a full patent is required. I have only done this from a product point of view so maybe there's a copyright way of covering your idea.

Essentially Mr Burns is right you have to deal with those parasites called lawyers for advice.
 
A few things you can do is to search for others with the same idea as per tech's post. here is a good start.

http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/patents/search_index.shtml

A good patent attorney is a start as the first consultation is usually free. I've used Fisher Kelly in the past and find them very helpful. I've gone through the patent process a few times now, have 2 product "ideas" sold and are in production by a manufacturer. I was very happy with the result. Patents can be a little as $2k with little to no searching from the legal team.

As for selling an idea, it can be done but having research, projections, and potential sales channels nailed down would be a good start. Working prototypes or even basic models may help.

Some businesses may baulk at confidentiality clauses / contracts. Be sure to seek legal advise before courting any potential partners. Keep immaculate records of all communication with everyone.

If for instance, your product is to be made with a plastic polymer, don't approach the manufacturer of such products but approach the supplier of the materials used by the type of manufacturer you need. The supplier of raw matierals may see the potential and increased sales and help you with the leg work in finding a manufacturer of like mind and vision.

As usual though, Prawn every situation is different so drop in and find a specialist.
 
Thanks everyone, sounds like i should do my research first and then maybe speak to a lawyer.

Reason i ask is that i know it will take some capital to be able to pay for the IT side of things that would need to be done (probably not too difficult, just way out of my depth), patents, copywrites etc, so i would probably be looking at 20k or so, which i just dont have at the moment, being a student. I would also want to set up a company for it.

So at this stage it sounds like i should just sit on the idea until i have some more spare cash.

Stan, i would love to hear about your story, could you PM me if your not comfortable posting it here? Did you have working prototypes of the products? Or just ideas/drawings/theories? Do you recieve royalties (if you want to say)? How did you go about pitching it to business'?
 
What would be the process say for example of an online dating type service. Surely you couldn't copyright that idea? I mean there is hundreds of online dating services. For this style of idea, would it be more so be first in best dressed, or whoever offers the best services keeps their clientele?
 

I have a bit of experience with the online dating sites since the divorce...its very competitive in the online dating world, 1 small, successful forum based site i was once close to, actually got copied 100%, the colors, headers, thread titles everything, and there was nothing the owner of the original could do...the copy cat site even poached members from the original.

I'm not a member of any pay sites so cant comment on those...but the free ones have heaps of members, some older ones well over 1 million members and often over 5000 online at any one time....they make there money via ads same as ASF, some try and be like social networking sites others go for the simple fast approach...i like simple and fast.
 
Cheers So, I have an idea, which is more so member based, which would charge a small fee - $1 a month. Hopefully the content is specific enough to target a certain section of the public. I am just slightly concerned of spending the dollars to get the website up and running, only to have someone come in and offer the same thing, perhaps for free, perhaps with a better service.

But I guess I'm never going to find out sitting around worrying about it.

More investigating to do yet.
 
Johnny,

As you may know i have recently started a website. One of the pro's (but is also a con when it comes to competition), is the ease of entry into the market. It costs very little to set up and host a website. Once you have it up and running your biggest cost is marketing, which can be adapted to suit your budget.
 
Forget the patent. The time and money you will waste will mostly not be worth the effort of a startup. Run the biz not the product.

Spend the time getting a good biz plan together and some experience talking to investors. Then raise some money and go for it. The best protection for an idea is to be known for being the first to make it a business. Lot easier to raise funds for the legals and expansion (including patents) once you have got a few customers through the door.


Inventors are worried about protecting there ideas with patents and spend most of there efforts protecting their baby as a consequence never getting the idea up as a biz.
 

Prawn,

Check with your university. University Queensland has a group called Uniquest that specialise in commercialisation of university research, and IP protection is a large part. Your university may have similar bodies.
 
Just as an update, when conducting further research i found products similar overseas which were patented so i have decided not to go ahead with that particular idea.

Still a helpful thread though
 
So the idea has already been done overseas? Mind telling us what it was since its already been done?
 
ojm said:
So the idea has already been done overseas? Mind telling us what it was since its already been done?
Click to expand...

Yeh i guess...

Basically it was the idea for a parking meter with an inbuilt camera so as to monitor parks, photo the licence plate, and automatically send a ticket if they stay over the time limit. Would cut back on inspectors costs as well as increasing revenue for councils.

Has been implemented in towns in Canada and USA, but im not aware of it in Aus yet. Perhaps someone with more seed capital than i could begin importing them?
 


sounds like a friend winning idea.......
 
That would be a severly limited market in Australia anyway, you'd be limiting your potential returns by attempting to commercialize, capitalize and hence become wealthy from.

What you need to do is try and isolate a product - either brand new, or a variation of something already existing, that is not only cheap to produce, but is mass consumed by the public, something that people wouldnt hesitate too much before they decided to buy/ consume it.

Another option is to go big and start developing properties. Buy a block of land that can be subdivided, or one which will allow you to build a small block of units or a small block of townhouses on and then offsell each. I would view this as being more capital intensive, but once you reached a certain size, your wealth could snowball and it would be nothing to snap up a few blocks and transform them - Even go on to do a springfield lakes style of thing like what is here in Brisbane.

You dont even need to think of a new product, i mean look at JB-HiFi, before they came around there was heaps of large retail stores selling mass produced electronic goods and hardware, JB HiFi was marketed extremely well to another market segment initially and from there it has also spurned on WoW sight and sound etc... So its really all about bringing in a point of difference and also it helps if you know people who are accountants, lawyers etc who can give you pointers with things
 
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