Legal expertise
Once in a blue moon, you may come up with a genius idea that you want to turn into a project. However, in this increasingly technological world, there is a greater need for protection of ideas than ever. As entrepreneurs, there are always stories of people getting their great idea stolen by individuals or big companies. Thus, if you believe your idea has the potential to make it big, it is important to protect your idea from being stolen. Below, we explore 8 different ways in which you can protect your idea from getting stolen.
Maybe the most obvious tip, the first and most simple way to protect your idea is to share it sparingly. Only letting a select amount of people, you trust, know about your idea will provide greater protection for your idea. Although, in some cases, it may be necessary to share information about your idea, including technical details with developers, to pitching to clients. However, one way around this is to not share all the details of your idea.
Aside from sharing it sparingly with others, a great way to ensure that your idea won’t get stolen is to use non-disclosure agreements with anyone you work with. A non-disclosure agreement is a legal and confidential agreement that protects any material, knowledge and information that the parties share and not only ensures that your idea is protected, but also ensures that anyone you speak to, are not going to steal your idea or share information around to third parties.
One of the other initial ideas that should come to mind when wanting to protect your idea is to copyright your idea. Copyright protects the creative expression of ideas, in writing, music, images, computer programs, databases and broadcasts. Not only does copyright provide exclusive right to use, copy, license creative work, it also provides an individual with control of the use of creative expression. In consideration, implementing protection upon your idea is the best way to protect your idea. Consider heading to Legal Vision to copyright your idea and prevent stealing.
Hand in hand with a non-disclosure agreement, a non-compete agreement is also a beneficial mechanism to use, to protect your idea. The idea behind this tool is, if you have employees, or people working with your project, have them a sign a non-compete agreement. This agreement prevents an individual from starting their own business that could threaten or compete with yours. Further, it prevents your employees or anyone working on your project from working on a project that is directly similar to yours.
Similar to copyright protection, patents are also a great way to protect your idea from being stolen. A patent is a government granted exclusive license to make, use or sell an invention for a limited period. Whilst patents are a great way to protect an invention, it must be considered that patenting an invention is an expensive and time-consuming process and it can often not work out. Thus, utilising legal services to help may be a great idea. Further, patenting an invention, can further protect you from potential legal issues.
A big part of coming up with an idea is the brand creation that follows. And as the idea grows into a business, branding will become one of the most important assets. Thus, trademarking can be great protection for your idea as trademarking can help prevent your competitors from using your business logo, symbols, icons or any words associated with your brand. When registering a trademark, your intellectual property and brand asset is well protected. Consider engaging the services of a specialised trademark lawyer to aid the process.
It’s common for many entrepreneurs to become less stressed after having implemented legal protections such as trademarks, patents and copyright protection. However, it can still be possible for someone to steal an idea. Thus, a good process to implement are digital protection software. Here, not only are your ideas and business assets protected by individuals who may attempt to steal your ideas but also from online scammers and software hackers.
Good ideas don’t happen very often, and great ideas are even rarer. Thus, when your great idea becomes a potential reality, it is essential to protect your ideas from being stolen. Implementing these preventative tools above will not only protect your business and ideas from being stolen but ensure that your business grows into the potential it has.