Hi, I am currently working on a piece of software which I consider to be innovative and somewhat original. My question is: what can be done to stop another company from taking my idea and making a slightly different/better version of this and remarketing it as their own? I know I can trademark the name of the software, but this is not my primary concern. I''ve wondered this for a while and didn''t know who to ask. I just combed through the archives here and found good info, but not really an answer to my question. Thanks BC

"Ideas" as such can''t belong to any one person.
If you use a unique technique, or an original say "game system" you might be able to patent it and stop others but I wouldn''t count on it.
This probably varies from country to country but I''m pretty sure you can''t patent ideas as you can with theories, inventions, intellectual property, etc.

simply put a patent is the only way. though it better be damn innovative and original algorithm that is not easily thought up by another. in other words most likly your work is based on other ppls work and is probably nothing special hat someone else could not come up with on there own.

you dont have much of any options. you could give a high level overview of what the software does, and i am sure someone will know if its "non obvious" enough to warrent a patent. you dont want to spend the money patenting your algorithm when its been done already or could be with "little" work.

if you cant even give a high level overview of what the software does, then its not special and you cant do anything about it. dont be so afraid. its called competition. heck i even bet someone already wrote software that does what yours does. believe it or not, there are other bright innovative ppl out there. to make your version stand out you need to offer a good interface, make it fast, make it high quality, make it cheap, etc.

no one will steal yoru code, and they would have to figure out the software and algorithms themselves. though it sounds like a mish mash of existing apps that you decided to put together.

Every month or so someone posts asking exactly that. Still I never heard of them and their great ideas again. Just concentrate on getting it done and afterwards think about protecting it.

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Fortunately and unfortunately, there''s absolutely nothing to stop them. Fortunately, because it brings about competition for similar products. For instance, do you like McAfee''s virus scan or Norton''s? Unfortunately, because if you have limited resources, and make something good, and Microsoft decides they like it enough to imitate it, you can''t do anything about it.

While a copyright can offer you some protection, and a Patent will offer you a lot more, both have their drawbacks. Both require you to file source code with a government agency and that becomes publically available. Whether someone would actually take the time to go to the office and photocopy it is doubtful, but stranger things have happened.

Your idea is very likely not unique. And you''d be hard pressed to sell it. Companies don''t pay money for ideas. They pay for implementation. Ideas are free. Implementations are not (Don''t jump in on me for free source code, freeware, etc. That''s not what I''m talking about and you know it.) It takes large companies hundreds of thousands of dollars to research and develop new software and technologies. It doesn''t cost a thing to have a good idea, and you can''t sell a good idea to a customer.

My advice would be to take the software you''re making all the way to completion. If it is a niche market and does well, you''ll be able to hire a crack team to make a second version that is better than the first to make even more money. If someone decides to imitate the software, then suddenly you have competition. That''s just the way that things work.

Good luck. Whatever it is, I hope it makes it to the market.

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An idea is barely worth the cost of the paper it''s written on, and definitely not worth the cost of the safe it''s hidden in. Make your implementation as robust, usable, and useful as possible. If someone else decides they want to make something better, then let them try; who are you to decide that your program must be the be-all and the end-all of its type?


Don''t listen to me. I''ve had too much coffee.

Another point - in the unlikely event you''d be able to get a valid patent claim together, patents are very expensive (to the best of my knowledge). I recall talking to a guy a few years ago that had invented some kind of powered bicycle thing. He''d spent around IR£30,000 getting patents on it.