

How Do You Protect Your Ideas? - jamesbritt

Notwithstanding the various "ideas are worthless" threads, there may come a time when you need to prove that the ideas and concepts behind your product were indeed yours, and not swiped (intentionally or otherwise) from a competitor, collaborator, potential business partner, what have you.<p>What, if anything, do people do to document the origin and progress of their (potential)  product ideas?  File provisional patents (seems difficult of you are simply brainstorming)?   Keep dated records, perhaps in hard-bound notebooks?
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jamesbritt
Judging by some comments, I don't think my initial post was clear.

My question is not about keeping others from copying my ideas, but
demonstrating that I have not filched ideas from others.

Suppose you are working on a product. You have a discussion with some other
company; turns out they are working on something similar.

You release your product, and they claim you stole the idea and sue.

How does one demonstrate that your work was done independently and began
before any such discussions?

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inklesspen
I give them away. People assume they are useless because I appear unwilling to
pursue them. Then I win.

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ivankirigin
Running as fast as possible with your ideas keeps them pretty safe. You'll
drop a few in the scramble, and it won't matter.

