If I Invent Something Which Has A Chance of Earning Billions If Brought To Market, What Should I Do To Prevent Others From Cheating Me Out of What I Deserve

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If I invent something which has a chance of

earning billions if brought to market, what
should I do to prevent others from cheating me
out of what I deserve?
History is full of people who killed themselves after inventing something legenwait for it-dary because they found out they earned much much less for it than
what they actually deserved. Suppose I invent something great, what should be
my plan of action to earn as much as I can and gain proper r... (more)
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Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder and Wikia cofounder

Written Feb 15, 2013 Upvoted by Mike Townsend, Founder of HomeHero. Zing (acq.
BigCommerce) & Flowtab previously. INTJ and Marc Bodnick, Co-Founder, Elevation Partners
Before I answer your question directly (and I promise I will) let me just offer the opinion
that young entrepreneurs often think this is a real problem which faces them, when in fact
the opposite problem is much much much more likely to be the case: far from other people
seeing your thing as "legen-wait for it-dary" as you put it :-), no one will care about you or
your idea at all.
Notice that this is more true the more paranoid you are about it. Just a few days ago I got a
3 page pitch letter from someone who simply described to me in stereotypical buzzwords
how I could add synergistic brand value to their revolutionary value-add concept that would
blah blah blah - 3 pages with absolutely no information whatsoever about what the hell the
person wants to do.
I remember when I first had the idea for a freely licensed encyclopedia written by
volunteers. I remember a feeling of urgency and panic because the idea seemed so obvious
that I thought lots of people would be competing with me, so I rushed out and hired Larry
Sanger to work for me as editor in chief of the project, and we launched Nupedia as quickly
as possible. Nearly two years later, with the project generally unsuccessful at that point, no
one else was competing with us at all. My panic about someone rushing to compete with me
was not justified.
Now, to answer your question directly because, despite my view that in general this isn't
really the problem that you face, sometimes it is, and it's worth a few words about that.
First, if your idea is the sort of thing that could be reasonably patented, then you can work
to file a patent. I'm not a big believer in this for most things (particularly not software or
dot-com ideas, where I find patents to be useless for protecting startups and pernicious for
the industry as a whole), but if your legendary concept is a genuine scientific/engineering
invention, then by all means, get a patent.
Second, and I'm stealing this line from Facebook (probably Mark Zuckerberg said it first, I
don't know): Move fast and break things. This is particularly important if there are
"network externalities" in your idea, or any other kind of genuine "first mover advantage".
(Though notice: both those concepts are much much much overused.)
Just get moving and don't look back.
Ok, so that is my direct answer, but now I want to go back and remind you of my first
answer. THIS IS PROBABLY NOT THE PROBLEM THAT YOU REALLY HAVE. Far far
more entrepreneurs have lost out on great opportunities because they were so paranoid
about someone stealing their idea that they were unable to raise capital, unable to get
started, unable to actually DO anything.
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Benjamin Shyong, Founder at Meddik.com

Written Feb 20, 2013
Short answer - people don't deserve anything. Every result is the direct result of effort (and
to some measure serendipity) - we get what demand (and work our ass off for) not what we
deserve. The deserve mentality is not a good mentality to have for an inventor or
entrepreneur.
Standard wisdom, e.g. legal contracts, patents, trustworthy partners, can protect you to
some measure, but they are all defensive measures.
Execute quickly and learn rapidly - trying to prevent competition is a futile effort. The best
way to win is through smarts (having a more refined strategy and smarter tactics) or speed
(moving so fast they can't keep up).
Here is some reading that touches on the subject you raised. I recommend you read them they provide some great insights on the concepts of secrets and execution.
Someone Stole My Startup Idea Part 2: They Raised Money With My Slides?!
Peter Thiels CS183: Startup - Class 11 Notes Essay
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Matthew Stibbe, Founded TurbineHQ.com, and ArticulateMarketing.com

Written Mar 10, 2013
Last week an accountant urged me to get VC funding for my business

(http://TurbineHQ.com) so that I can accelerate its growth and get out ahead of the
competition 'before it's too late'. I asked him if there were other accounting firms in London.
It turns out that there are quite a lot and that doesn't stop him making a good living.
My point is that a lot of people care a lot about competition and, consequently, care a lot
about protecting an 'idea' when in fact they should focus more on building a successful
business that serves the needs of real clients in a profitable way. The best protection for
most business ideas is a good business.
Back when I ran a computer games company, we got zillions of people wanting to submit
game ideas for us to develop (note that we would do all the work but the 'inventors' wanted
their cut of the money!). They would come in with these big-ass NDAs and paranoid chips
on their shoulder. But they didn't have any programming skills, no graphic designers, no
publisher relationships, no experience. And, almost always, they had a shitty game idea too.
So, in my experience, ideas are overrated compared to execution.
Just my two pennies. I could be wrong. My wife says it happens sometimes.

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Pontus Berg, Telco entrepreneur

Written Jun 26, 2013
Several people said it already; realistically, you can't.

It's been said that the future is not a fight between the big and the small. It will be between
the fast and the slow.
There will ALWAYS be a Rocket Internet that will clone your success.
Doing it better, faster and get to be top of mind in your category is EVERYTHING.
In business - unlike sport - a strong defence can never be the best offence. If this is your
strategy, you are doomed to lose. You can be denied a future in court, but you can't create
one there.
I'm sure most of you have seen the Guy Kawasaki speak, but let me bring your attention to a
point some 24.50 minutes in the talk. It's a top 10 mistake, "Believing Patents =
Defensibility".
My analogy; You don't best dodge bullets with armour but by running so fast it's virtually
impossible to hit you.
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Anonymous
Omg, stop obsessing over your idea getting stolen.

Focus 100% on execution. Put something out there, get user feedback, then make it better.
Read the book "The Lean Startup" ... it's all the rave in Silicon Valley right now.
The Lean Startup

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David Morris, Practitioner, Advisor, Coach, Author, and Educator on all things
Lean and Agile
Updated Jul 26, 2015
Here's a funny but true story:

In 2000, as music lovers, myself and two others were tired and concerned with all those
MP3 sites that allowed you to pay to download tracks but nothing went to the artists (or
record labels).
We prototyped and built a system with a revenue-sharing business model for partnering
with the labels and independent artists, and signed up a few smaller ones to prove the
concept.
We knew we couldn't seriously make it on our own, and that 20% of something delivered is
worth far more than 100% of vapour-ware, so we looked for partners to execute on the idea.
We had a major record label (EMI) very interested in granting us progressive evidencebased access to their back catalogue, but wanted to see we had strong financial backing and
infrastructure.
We had a major VC (3i) very interested in investing money to build that infrastructure, but
wanted to see we had buy-in from the music industry (and of course, the term exclusive was
bandied about a lot back then too).
Unfortunately we never managed to get them around the same table at the same time, we
struggled with this for a while, but it never got anywhere.
Eighteen months later, Apple launched iTunes.
Were we upset? No, we applauded them! Are we bitter? Not a chance! We didn't deliver! We
didn't execute! A great idea alone is worth nothing.
Worry about protecting your idea when you have something delivered and earning revenue
(even profit), and then protect it by making it better than anything else and move faster
than anyone else could.
For the fact-checkers out ther, this was originally floated as psi-music.com and built
asnow.fm. The sites don't exist any more, of course, but they are all there in archive.orgif
you want to check them out.
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Matthew Putman, Founder and CEO Nanotronics Imaging

Written Dec 17, 2014
I think this is something that all of us inventing things think about until we become more
rational and strategic about it. I have very little worry about theft of ideas. I know that this
seems naive, but I have been making high tech instruments for 20 years. Some were
patented and some were not, and basically the same thing happens when something is good
and when something is bad.
When it is good the invention inspires people. An inspired inventor doesn't want to copy
they want to create. I am inspired by Thomas Alva Edison, Gordon Moore, Steve
Wozniak, Bill Hewlett, Goodrich and plenty of others, and I never wanted to compete with
them by doing what they did. I wanted to compete with the notion that they had reached
the peak of human ingenuity. I wanted to invent something new.
If your invention is truly brilliant, then you will have more followers than thieves in your
life, and also you will know that the contribution you have made to the world was an original
act of creativity. Enjoy the process and joy of building something no one has built before,
and worry less about being cheated out of it.
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Wouter Smet, Growth hacker at Engagor

Here's my take on 'big ideas': they tend to come from 'idea people'. And those potential
entrepreneurial spirit thieves you have in mind? They are also very likely 'idea people',
whose biggest pride are their OWN ideas.
And they probably have a dozen of those already lined up in their head before they would
even consider 'just executing' somebody else's idea. They just wouldn't get a lot of
satisfaction from that.
Now, I think this applies mostly to 'web ideas' ('facebook for pet owners!') where the real
value is in great execution. As Mr. Wales put it in his (great) answer: if it's something
industrial/engineering, where the idea truly is 90% of the value, by all means try to get a
patent on it.
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Erica Friedman, The Librarian is IN, 5

Updated Oct 8, 2014
I've invented an amazing system that will revolutionize a niche in publishing. Seriously, I
have. But I have no money, no coding skills and no way to build it.
So I put it out there for free on my blog about 3 years ago. Do you know how many people
have built it? None.
One company got kind of close, but not really, another is trying to do something sort of
similar. I work with both those companies and they have access to my knowledge and my
experience and they cannot build what I envisioned. Why? Not because it's not
revolutionary idea..because it *is* revolutionary and surprisingly few people want to have
revolutions in industries where margins are already thin. They hunker down and protect
what they have.
So, yeah, people stealing your idea is the least of your worries.
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Todd Gardiner, Photographer and questioner of too much privacy

Determining proper recognition and reward for your invention is based on more than just
the fact that you had an inception. Bringing things to market requires technical skill,
marketing know-how, and investment of capital.
You are worried that the other required roles are going to suck up all of the recognition and
rewards, perhaps because you cannot offer anything toward those needed elements. This is
certainly a problem for many.
But, if you can't offer any skills or capital toward the creation of this product or service, you
might be over-inflating the importance of the idea. But what is extremely valuable is
merging together a group that can provide these elements and making them believe in your
idea. If you can instill that belief, enlist those skill providers, that is how you earn your
worth as the inventor and it is how you spread your acclaim as the person who thought of
the idea.
The kicker, of course, is that your team is working on this before any others. Let them follow
you. That happens anyway in today's marketplace. Just get their first by leveraging your idea
and your belief that this can be made with others.
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Scott Welch, Still learning the hard way, 25 years after my first startup.
Written Feb 15, 2013 Upvoted by Rupert Baines, Founded several start-ups, exec at several
more, mentored many more. Two successful exits.
Go read Michael Wolfe's answer to Why is Dropbox more popular than other programs with
similar functionality?
Then read it again. And again. And again. And then read the comments, in particular the
comment that says "Good answer, but there have in fact been quite a few other services that
provided the exact same thing. Dropbox just got their product to market early and promoted
it exceedingly well."
There were (literally) hundreds of people and products who had the idea of building
Dropbox. Ideas, on their own, are worth nothing. It's what you produce that counts. And to
produce it, you need more than ideas. You need money and hard work from an incredible
team. And, unless you have a few million in your back pocket, the only way you can get
money and a team is to allow people to share in the dream. And that means sharing in
the money. You have to ask yourself: do you want 50% (or 25%, or 10%, or even 1%) of a
billion dollars, or 100% of nothing?
So stop being an idiot, promote your idea, go for broke, and hang on for the ride.
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Baker Kawesa, Software Developer

This a personal opinion and reading through it, my bias against moot patents and nonpracticing rent-seeking as opposed to utility-driven patent regimes will be clear.
An idea is only worth a dollar but it's execution if done right could be worth millions -- a
bumper stickery truism I read somewhere. Many wannabe visionaries ask software
developers like myself to help realize their supposedly legendary ideas, so I'm often
needlessly asked to sign non-disclosure agreements for unremarkable ideas. The traditional
way of safeguarding one's invention is to file for patent protection, which was fitting when it
was first conceived eons ago before the dawn of the patent troll, as a way to promote
innovation by protecting the financial incentive to invent.
But sadly in this day and age of patent trolling, it's not the vulnerable inventor who didn't
have the resources to bring their idea into production before some deep-pocketed copycats
could sink their do-nothing claws into it and for whom patenting was envisaged to protect
that's getting mileage out of it, but the patent holding companies that invent nothingwhile
happily collecting rents on bullshit patents for mathematical ideas such as algorithms,
biological ones such as genes, as well as material things so obvious anybody could have
invented them -- which is stifling to innovation and insulting to genuine inventors.
That said, if you have an idea that few competitors short of corporate espionage or pure
genius can outright eclipse you of, patent it by all means. But if you're afraid somebody
might beat you to the market the moment they get a whiff of it, it's probably not as legen-wait-for-it--dary an idea as you think and you might fare better vying for first mover's
advantage by focusing your faculties and energies on releasing a working product before the
market is crowded with copycats.
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Nigel Ravenhill, I Help Companies Get Attention, Get Customers & Close More
Deals
Written Jul 4
Patents + trademarks + execution + urgency + LUCK = Youve got a chance at success.

This SlideShare deck (IP of the 4th of July) helps to illustrate the connection between ideas
and success. Some were developed slowly over time; others were rapid IDEA to
PROTOTYPE to PATENT to PRODUCT to COMMERCIAL SUCCESS trajectories.
To earn as much as you can, youll need the ability to develop what youre going to sell,
develop the marketing program to promote it, develop the sales resources and channels to
distribute it, and ensure operational competence so that the company expands with as little
friction and inefficiency as possible.
In short, this is going to require a lot more people than just you, and financial resources that
may surpass yours. Start identifying people and resources who can help you in their areas of
specialized knowledge.
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Yosu Cadilla, Internet Marketing Expert

Written Jan 15
Having ideas is simple, I have 100 ideas every day, you don't deserve anything for having an
idea... how many people do you think had the idea of mining the moon or to create a
populated base on Mars, hundreds, millions, maybe billions?
The only ones who DESERVE, are those who make it happen, so convert your billionaire
idea into a product and sell it, then you will be earning exactly what you deserve!
"A chance of earning billions" is exactly what you get when you buy a lottery ticket. How
much do you think the winning ticket would be worth if no one else played but you? exactly,
nothing! And that's exactly what your idea is worth until all the rest is put into motion. All
the people and all the resources that are going to be needed participating in making your
idea into a reality, they have to put in either cash or effort into it so one day it can become
profitable.
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Dave Robinson, 25+ year career as an Aeronautical Industry Professional

Written Mar 5, 2015
The idea isn't the value, as if not executed upon, it brings you nothing.
Value comes from a 'value proposition' which is then widely adopted by others in exchange
for something of value of their own.
That whole process, creation of the proposition, indentifcation of those who would likely
adopt it, acquisition of their attention, delivery of your proposition to them and harnessing
value from them in return, is facilitated through a business model.
It is the right business model which will earn you billions, but it does start with an idea.
Go get them champ !
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Eric Pepke
Rather difficult. My father invented the lens that makes it possible to take pictures above
and below and in the middle of water without distortion. He got a pittance from it, mostly
from Leitz, a Canadian company. Everyone else just stole it. Eventually, Leitz stopped
paying him, because everyone else was getting away with stealing it, but hey...
Unfortunately, he spent the rest of his life working on things like graphic equalizers, which
he imagined he could protect by selling them in hard potting compound, which they could
not take apart without breaking. He died unhappy, but with a drug-induces fantasy that he
was working on an invention that would make us all rich. That didn't work. When my
mother died eventually, I got $12,000 in inheritance.
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Antony Chen, Started up a startup

Written Dec 17, 2013
A wise man once told me that ideas are like the hole your rear end, everyone's got one. (This
wise man used a more vulgar version of this, but I digress.) If you have this "idea", then
chances are, 100 other people are doing it too. And, of those, 50 of them are already further
along than you.
99% of the real work is in executing your idea by testing the market, finding product/market
fit, building a company, hiring great talent, and pouring blood, sweat, and tears that you
didn't even know you had.
With that said, if you've invented cold fusion, a cure for all cancers, or a self-driving car (oh
wait..scratch that..already done), then by all means, run out and patent it.
To add to a more serious note to my snarky note above that hasn't been discussed, let's say
you did invent something great. It doesn't mean you're the one that should be running the
company. Building a company is a much different skill set than someone who builds
software or sits at an electronics lab bench. I know it's tough to give up control, but someone
who knows what they're doing in company building will make you way more money than
you would have trying to go it alone.
Good luck with your invention! (I hope it's either cold fusion or a cure for all cancers.)
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Kelly Schrock
Written May 30, 2015
Others have already stated, quite eloquently, why you shouldn't worry about someone
stealing your idea. In the interest of completeness, here's something I would add. Hopefully
it's obvious.
If you're convinced your idea is actually a good one, don't worry about it being stolen, but by
all means, get moving and pursue it. Because even though it's unlikely someone will try to
steal your idea specifically, it's extremely likely that at some point, someone will eventually
stumble across the very same problem your idea aims to solve. If nothing exists in the
market to solve the problem (e.g. your solution), they will pursue a solution, and (if the
problem is important enough) eventually succeed. When that happens, and you find
yourself having done nothing with yours, you'll feel kind of stupid.
Here's an example of what I mean: Two years ago, I defined a protocol for tiny devices ($25
or so cost) on a mesh network to communicate with each other and interact with each other
in a "smart" way. I built a little USB/mesh bridge device, a few devices, and an Android app
to validate the idea.
You could wander into a room, the app would find things in the room it could interact with.
When you clicked on a device, the app would build a UI that appeared to be purpose-built
for interacting with the device you clicked on. It doesn't matter what the device is (soil
probe, BBQ grill, humidity sensor, light switch, stereo, etc), the app could interact with it as
if it had been built specifically for it (even though it wasn't). You could also control how far
the app would search for things to talk to: Just this room? This room and adjacent rooms?
The whole house? The entire network?
It actually was pretty cool. I described it to someone. They urged me to visit the patent office
and demo it (seemed like a reputable place, in a tall building). The patent attorney used the
term "bad ass" at one point, said it had "potentially very broad applicability". So I filed a
provisional patent.
Then I got busy doing other stuff. I figured someone else had already thought of my idea,
and I just didn't happen to know about it. I did a few patent searches and found some
vaguely similar ideas for "bridging across networks", but didn't spend too much time on it.
So I dropped the whole thing. (Notice that at no point did I worry about someone stealing it.
It didn't seem like an issue, because it wasn't an issue.)
Anyway, I could go on and describe my idea in detail, but at this point it's much easier to
just point you to the Google IO 2015 keynote, where they talk about Weave. With a few
differences, it's basically the same exact thing, for the same exact purpose. Mine is meant for
smaller/cheaper devices with less memory, but the overall approach seems basically the
same. The part in the keynote where they show the JSON description of a device made me
laugh out loud, because it looks pretty much exactly like mine did.
So, for my efforts, I get the satisfaction of knowing my idea was cool enough that someone
smart like Google would eventually have the same idea and actually want to do something
with it. But that is all I get. Who knows what might have happened had I not "gotten busy
with other stuff"? Even if I had just open-sourced it, would something have come of it? No
way to know, since I didn't do anything.
So, in summary, don't screw around. Pursue your idea. If it's legitimately patentable, protect
yourself and file a patent. If you find that someone is trying to "steal" it, consider that as
validation of your idea, and keep plugging away.
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Pete Jarvis
Updated Oct 17, 2015
Dear Sirs,
Whenever I encounter this topic I always like to start by referencing one of my favorite
quotes:
"Few ideas are in themselves practical. It is for want of imagination in applying them,
rather than in acquiring them that they fail. The creative process does not end with
an idea-it only starts with an idea.
the core point is that idea execution always wins over the idea invention. to be clear, I
am a strong proponent of idea invention, and invention markets. My point is that idea
execution is key to monetization.
Steve Blank gives a great example of this - a company saw his pitch deck and copied it
(typo's and all) - they failed to raise money. Steve won the day not because of his idea but
because of his execution of the idea.
-------Ok, now that we have defined the context, let us look at answering the second component of
your question - protection... My recommendation is you first consider protection from the
perspective of the following participants:
1. Founder Perspective
2. Investor Perspective
3. Inventor Perspective
4. Customer Perspective
their definition of protection is influenced by their roles and needs. Thus, in simple terms:
The founder wishes to protect their investment of time and credibility in the
company and potentially the idea [They may not have been involved]. A CEO
has to consider investors hence the hierarchy is Themselves, Investors,
Company, Inventor
The investor wishes to protect their investment of money in the company. A
investor has to consider their investment, the investors who invested in them;
hence the hierarchy is Themselves, Their Investors, Company, CEO, Inventor...
The Inventor wishes to protect their investment in the idea, in the company. An
Inventor has to consider their investment of time and effort in creating the basic
idea. An Inventor has to consider themselves hence the hierarchy is
Themselves, Investors, Company, CEO
The customer is interesting because they do not want to be involved in litigation
hence they have to consider themselves and how they mitigate risk. Themselves,
Company, CEO, Investors, Inventor...
hopefully this explains the conflict of interest created... Chuckle:-)

The mistake is to focus on your interests solely as the inventor. You will fail on execution if
you fail to build a train that people want to get on. Simply put - you have to share the pot
with [Founders, Investors, Staff etc] - the people need an incentive to help you. However,
you can protect your interests...
Everyone generally starts with patents I don't. I start with names... Trademark, copyright
are far easier to defend and file than patents. Patents are super powerful - don't go wild file
one, maybe two core patents. These add credibility to investment - as they imply a later
stage protection to an investment...
[Aside point] Once you are big enough - the focus has to be on filing patents against
your competitors technology not yours [70/30 Split]. If they assert against you, you have
to either buy or assert patents that read on their technology not yours... It is a subtle but
important point...
For example, start with the company name, the web site name, the brand - as an inventor I
always make sure those have clear title and I as an inventor have a lean on them. I then
broker my lean with participants and investors by sharing out assets such as equity,
trademark rights etc.
Meanwhile as an investor I make sure that the company has clear rights and ownership of
such assets - not an individual. As an example, I could swap equity for rights to a great
company name.
Herein, lies the conflict as an inventor I protect my ownership stake in the assets of the
company and equity. However, I tend to share the assets with participants
as executionalways wins over ownership.
If someone out executes you in the market you, you still loose...
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Alx Klive, Entrepreneur / Purveyor of Ideas

Updated May 24, 2015
People like to say that "ideas have no value", I disagree. Implementation is crucial of course,
but there's an argument to say the book's been written on that many times.
Any good idea should be readily implementable by any competent group or organization. It
is much harder to teach creativity and recognizing a good idea, than it is implementation
(just ask Hollywood).
How to protect your billion dollar idea is really a question of how to progress it. It's a
problem I've been working on for a very long time, and think I've finally cracked.
It's not fully live yet but check out http://www.thedavinciproject.com
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Phil Albert
Written May 3, 2015
If you have such a great idea, and it is not something that anyone can grasp in a minute, you
can implement it and everyone will ignore you until their tiny brains can grasp the concept.
At that point, you will be so far ahead that those with sense would partner with you.
If your idea doesn't seem to fit that paradigm, maybe it really isn't a billion dollar idea. Look
back at all the billion dollar ideas in the past. How did they all avoid their ideas from being
taken? In most cases, you will find that the billion dollar idea started out as something that
people originally thought wasn't all that great.
Also, the idea isn't everything. Execution matters. Someone came up with the idea of
capitalizing on unused driver/car capacity and matching unused capacity with people who
want rides. Excellent idea and has proven to be a billion dollar idea (depending on how you
count). Without naming names, someone came up with that idea, someone copied and
created a variation, some copied exactly without variation, and then some copied them. Who
is still around? Maybe the one with the initial idea, or maybe the general idea was floating
around for decades. The ones that are still around may have got copied, but they executed
well enough to survive.
Don't worry so much about others copying. If it is patentable, file a patent and get back to
work executing.
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Guillaume Bazan, growth equity investor - the goal is not to call you a
"startup" anymore !
As long as this idea has not been translated into anything material in the real world, I would
argue that you don't "deserve" anything. The fact that you "deserve" it is debatable from 2
perspectives
1) Legitimacy of intellectual property. The fact that you can own ideas like you own material
objects is debatable because ideas are infinite and sharing them does not alter their power:
the fact that I listen to the same song or use the same software as you does not change
anything about the way you use it. It's not the case with material objects as they are "unique
and finite" which is not the case of "ideas".
2) Efficiency. As pointed out earlier in this discussion, the entrepreneurs that are the most
paranoid about their ideas are often the worst ones, because they think that having an idea
entitles them to something and that they can sue anyone thinking the same on the basis that
they thought about it "first". The most successful entrepreneurs on the contrary share their
ideas and discuss them to improve the resulting products.
... in the end, over focusing on the "idea" is one of the most widespread misconceptions
about entrepreneurship. You can have tons of different products for a same idea, and they
won't be as successful. Take UBER for instance - the idea behind it isnt groundbreaking, but
this firm is an insane execution machine. Product, Team and Execution are the only thing
that matters.
Even the people that we commonly see as the greatest innovators were also great copiers.
Apple "stole" a lot from Xerox in its early beginnings.

"Good artists copy, great artists steal" Pablo Picasso
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Tung Mai Le, Founder of SleepWake: keep you safe on the roads
Written Apr 11, 2013
Let's assume your idea is truly legendary. I have my thought as a binary tree like this (damn
can't draw the tree here :D), so bear with bullet points:
1. If you can do it yourself: Go do it, problem solved, no one can steal from you.
2. Else: there are 2 barriers you can put up:
o Technical: you can decouple the idea into separate parts, then hire
different people to do it for you. If it's
software/arts/contents/kickstarter-projects, there're heaps of freelancers waiting to be hired. If it's super high-tech hardware like GPU
chip, rocket parts, I'd say wait until you are as rich as Ellon Musk. Yes, he
started off with software.
o Legal: Go patent it, you just need to be specific just enough to get a
patent, leave it a bit open so that later you can sue any party if their ideas
happen to overlap just a little with yours :D
Hope it helps.
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Kam Layup, Investor, Producer, Dad

First of all, if you have created a ground-breaking product, that is great news and you should
be excited and proud. I'm not in any way taking that away from you.
You should take the obvious routes of intellectual property protection which is expensive.
When you go to trade you can provide incentives to distributors and wholesalers in order to
gain exclusivity or you can purchase specific key product placement areas that gives your
brand better consumer line of sight or more profile.
However, What you deem as your "legendary" advantage is in actual fact your Achilles heel.
First to market is a problem not a solution. While history does have many people who
invented then sold out too early, the world is an economic graveyard, of startups that were
first to market.
In my twenties, I had a business plan that I thought would shake the world up. I was
constantly in fear of someone coming up with it. I couldn't patent anything because it was
just an integration of existing technologies but my fear of competition was the primary
influencer for most of my strategic decisions.
Allow me to introduce you, the formula of failure.
I hired a full team, signed up a beautiful office for 6 years, hired an expensive PR team and
threw myself in hoping to capitalise on my first to market opportunity. Within one year I
had laid off 60 staff, I had $1 million in debt, a pit of expenses of around $50k per month
and accounts receivables of around $15k per month. Shortly there after I closed up shop and
settled with all creditors for cents on the dollar. Young bull was not happy and it took 5
years to satisfy all debt. What was the problem? Being first to market. What was meant to be
a simple sales strategy ended up being a massive financial abyss. We had to educate,
educate, educate which had a ridiculous material impact on the company. Advertising and
marketing collateral costs were through the roof and the sales process took 5 times as long.
The real problem you are facing if your product is extraordinary is the fact that you are first
to market and have no competitors. That isn't something you should be scared of. More
hands make for lighter work and this is essentially true in the advertising world. Educating
the market is ridiculously expensive and time intensive. Whatever your business plan for
world dominance is, triple the time and quadruple the capital investment you've forecasted.
A competitor is one of the best things you can have. Specifically one who has already
educated the marketplace. People already know what it is and what it can do for them and
all you have to do is show better value. Sometimes you don't even need that much, just be an
alternative.
If you have truly invented a winner, find a company that already has the distribution
channels and resources to effectively launch your product. Sign up a generous licensing
agreement, sit back and enjoy the residual cash flow. What's a billion do for you that $10
million won't. You'll stay in slightly nicer houses, travel in slightly nicer vehicles and your
bank account will show a few extra zeros. But the clincher is that you'll be looking at this
after an extra decade lost working for it.
I have a sweet little product that has a global marketplace and has never been done before
aswell. We literally finished working samples last week. I will be shopping for the right
partners to pay me royalties for this one too.
Good luck to you.
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Craig Pearson, Co-Founder Private Wealth Systems

(www.privatewealthsystems.com)
I would encourage you to change your thinking a bit. Success is not what you 'deserve' but
rather what you 'earn' over time with a great deal of sacrifice. It is one thing to imagine a
great invention, it is another to create or build that invention, and to actually monetize that
invention is also a different task altogether. The world is full of great ideas, but bringing
that idea to market is what separates great entrepreneurs from dreamers. I have also
learned, the hard way, that contracts and other protective measures mean little. The paper
behind contracts is only as good as the people signing them. Unethical people have no
moral boundaries, and if someone wants to steal your idea they will. Your best defense is a
great offense - be smarter and more valuable than anyone else when it comes to your idea.
If you can't be smarter or more valuable alone then look to partnerships to help build or
distribute your idea/product. So again you deserve nothing, you must earn everything, and
the only way to do that is to be the most valuable person in monetizing your idea. I hope
this helps.
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Osiris
Become the best 'birther' of that I idea.

Be the one who has the most knowledge, the most understanding of the idea, the most
vision, the one who best knows how to execute the idea in the marketplace, the one with the
most willpower, the one with the most passion and desire, the one who is surrounded by the
best group of people to make it happen, etc.
If you become the most suited person and group to bring the idea into existence, then the
market will naturally choose YOU. Capitalism's biggest trait is in bringing the very best to
the top. Even if at the beginning others get ahead of you and have the first movers
advantage, if you are better fit for the job, in the long term you will eventually rise to the top.
Of course, aside from becoming the best, also do things that increase your odds of
succeeding anyways. Patents, trademarks, moving as quickly as possible, getting into the
market first.
And a word on first movers advantage. If your idea is within the tech industry, things move
so fast that FMA isn't always the best position to be in. Chances are that if you are first in
line, you are going to get the whole thing wrong and will have to do a lot of trial and error.
Trends and demands can change at a drop of a hat. By being first, you give way to the
'hawks' who will study you, learn from your mistakes, and move in with a clearer perspective
and vision based on YOUR shortcomings. Let others make your mistakes for you.
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Ezhil Arasan Manoharan

Written May 30, 2015
Jonas Salk didn't patent his vaccine, he thought about the poor kids who can't afford the
vaccines, if he patented it, I am sure most of the poor kids in third world countries would
have suffered from polio and he would have been a billionaire. He may be a bad economist
but he was a great human.
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Kevin Moriarty, Inventor

Written Oct 27, 2014
I am a professional inventor.
The number one problem of inventors is fear of theft, the number 2 problem is failure to
take action.
Here is one business model I've found useful:
Idea>market analysis>prototypes and feedback>licensing
(there are lots of details not included)
Depending on your skills, idea, knowledge/experience, talent, and environment(especially
other people), the above model can be executed in a week(for ideas with potential), but
usually takes 2 years to never for most people. I'd plan on at least 10 fails of the above
system before one success.
example:
100 ideas
market analysis shows idea is already done or no market (80 ideas)
prototypes too difficult(slow) to make for you (15 ideas)
pitch proposal to companies for licensing (4 ideas don't have developed licensing channels, 1
idea has good open innovation companies)
idea fails to get licensed
the above counts as 1 of the necessary 10 fails
remember:
don't marry your idea until it puts out
if its worth doing its worth doing poorly
time to cognitive transition is your primary metric (get in and out fast)
all the above is for inventors, not entrepreneurs (which have significantly different
problems)
entrepreneurs are bright, work hard, and are focused.
inventors have genius level insights, have many ideas in many areas, can hyper focus for
comparatively shorter periods of time.
an entrepreneur is more like a warrior, an inventor is more like a researcher(experimental).
There are very many entrepreneurs and they have well developed support systems(I've
started and sold a variety of businesses). There are very few "true inventors" and almost no
support systems for them.

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Zoran Petrovic, Invent yourself first.

Written Nov 2
I think you can learn a lot from the example of one Mr. Robertson.
Robertson Website - History
History of the Robertson Screwdriver
In short, this fellow had a great idea and implemented it well. His biggest fault was that he
wanted to retain direct control over manufacturing of his invention. He did not prosper
much from it, and his invention - which is still much better than most other solutions in the
same category - is known and used pretty much only in Canada. He missed a chance for it to
become a worldwide standard. A chance that will not present itself again, because a fellow
by the name of Phillips didnt have a problem with licensing others to manufacture his
invention.
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Thomas James McGee

Written Jan 16, 2015
In general, ones ability to generate ideas is completely dwarfed by their ability to actually
execute them. In other words, ideas are cheap, it's execution that is valuable.
Executing your idea will be much more difficult than protecting it from others.
Also, contrary to common wisdom, it is rarely the first to market who wins. It is usually
those who hang back and learn the marketplace. Look at practically any product developed
by Apple, they are not masters of invention, just of building products people actually want to
use.
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Anonymous
My dad has a lot of experience in the food industry, and was approached by a guy who
wanted to start a high-priced chain of Chinese restaurants serving bland food.
My dad thought the concept was quite foolish on a number of fronts and passed on literally
being the first person in the company. Today, that restaurant chain is called P.F. Chang's. I
expect that several dozen or several hundred people had the same reaction as my dad.
Really great ideas sound pretty stupid at first. People often become billionaires proving that
their idea is worth stealing.
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Omar M. Kiam
Written Feb 3, 2014
Everyone praised Jimmy's answer but I don't think he really answered your question.
Your question seems to ask once you do all that work to bring your idea to market, how do
you protect yourself from sharks if your idea becomes successful? How do you protect
yourself from within, from those supposedly helping you?
I do agree that you shouldn't worry until after the idea is built and begins to show potential.
I think this is a good example of what you want to avoid:
A friend working for a large corporation spent three years trying to convince senior
management to build a web based self service application for mainframe users. He managed
to convince one manager to fund the project and six months later the application was built.
The application, a website which used web services to communicate to the mainframe, took
off. Within six months the app was processing 30,000 self service requests per month.
Long story short, the security department took ownership and credit for the application and
he was let go a year later. They saved millions and he got no credit and no millions.
It's a valid question for which there is no easy answer. You have to take the leap is already
understood.
What you can do is learn from what others have done before you. Be careful who you hire to
look out after your interests. Have contracts reviewed two or three times by different people.
Find someone you trust and bring them on board as your consigliere. Check the track record
for any potential investor: do they have a track record of doing this or they fully support the
founder?
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Richard Pettit, Technologist, Genealogist.

This question has been answered to death, but I'll add my 2.

Whatever you decide to push forward with, it should either be incredibly brilliant or
incredibly stupid. Those are the things that make the big money. Everything in the middle
languishes and burns everyone's money.
Good luck.
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Gareth Edwards, Computer Vision veteran. IEEE Test of Time 2015. SIGGRAPH
Real-time Live 2016
Updated Oct 28, 2014
Nobody 'deserves' a fortune for inventing something. Some people have made a fortune,
true, and good luck to them, but it's not 'deserved'.
What you actually 'deserve' is a function of your effort, your sacrifices, and your ethics,
that's all. Of course the world doesn't work like that. Wealth isn't distributed on the basis of
what people deserve. Not even close.
Rephrase the question: "...what should I do to have a chance of making the same obscene
wealth I've occasionally seen others make from a successful invention?"
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Andrew Bayon, Health Influencer. Feel Better, Look Better, Be Better

Written Aug 5
Everyone thinks they have something worth a billion dollars. Prevent others from cheating
you out of it? Not likely to happen, People usually buy the company with the product.
Also your thinking is out of line and not likely going to give you what you want.
Recognition, What I deserve The market deserves to give you nothing. Face it. The market
rewards whats been earned. You have to deserve it. Nothing is promised.
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Thomas Papakostas, Founder of R&D CORE Limited

1) Never disclose your invention in public before you have secured a priority date with a
patent application.
2) In discussions with manufacturers, potential partners, etc. have a Non-Disclosure
agreement signed before you disclose your invention or parts of it.
3) Now, capitalizing your invention is a different story. It is very hard work since you need
to come up with a business strategy and then EXECUTE it. I addition, you should do your
market research to understand what is the POTENTIAL of your invention. Then you will
know what you deserve to make.
4) Keep in mind that the potential is not the same with what you deserve. It takes a lot of
work, time and capital to commercialize your invention and build a company around it. This
step is worth a lot more than the invention itself. If you simply want to license or sell your
invention to someone else, then what you deserve to make is a LOT LESS.
5) The more uncertain the commercial value of an invention is, the greater the risk for
investing in it, the greater the return potential investors will command; less left for you.
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Defunct Mike Coleman, Quora uses email addresses as primary keys, and
mine changed, so this account...
Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram
them down people's throats. --Howard H. Aiken
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Joel Johnson
Written Sep 17, 2014
Distance yourself from people that like taking credit for things they didn't do, and choose
wisely who you surround yourself with. Even if no one steals your idea at the beginning, as
soon as it begins to take off, they'll flood in trying to copy, copy, copy. They'll also constantly
repeat what you've done in some BS attempt to say that because they are the ones talking
about it, they are the ones that did it. To remedy this, you need to stay ahead of them, and
ensure they can't get in your way.
Half the battle of successfully launching something that's significantly better/new is getting
other people aware of it, cutting through negative perceptions due to any snake oil that
preceded, and getting other people to use it. This can prove difficult even if what you came
up with is clearly better, and it's important to be aware of this not so you'll notice that's all it
is, rather than cave in and hand over what you've done to some greedy, green-eyed thief.
Also, while it may take work to get support for what you've come up with, this is usually only
in the beginning stages (before you have customers or something you can show). Once you
have something that everyone can see, the game changes and the parasites show up.
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Levi Thornton, Build startups. I consult and mentor others

Believing you deserve something will only trap you from finding the success you want. You
must continuously work hard at staying ahead of the competition, as competition is what
drives innovation!
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Christopher Reiss, Interested in movies, technology and culture. Founder at

pagequake.com.
To put a bit of a finer point on the other answers here,

You could invent cold fusion in a dixie cup using root beer and paper clips and
the first hundred people you talk to will ignore it.
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Jeremy Collake, Entrepreneurial Software Engineer

First of all, chances are your invention is not unique. Chances are many others have thought
of it. It's all about who has the impetus to DO IT. Often times the next incremental advance
in technology or whatever is obvious to anyone paying attention, but few people act upon
such. For that reason, I really object to most forms of patents.
However, say you want to pretend you're so brilliant that your idea needs 'protected' from
others, yet not good enough at business to execute upon it without such protection. In such
a case, you need to at least file a provisional patent, then you'll have to move to production
within a year, and hire a patent attorney (maybe $10K) to do a proper full patent
application. They do let just about anything be patented these days, it's quite absurd, but
defending those patents in court will, again, cost you a bunch in legal fees.
Thus, back to my original point. If you've got a great idea, execute on it. Execute on it now.
Be better, do something better, and you won't need to rely on artificial mechanisms of law to
protect your IP.
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Andrii Buvailo, +5 years of R&D experience in the field of sensor and

nanomaterials development
Written Dec 1, 2015
If you are talking about, say, anti-cancer drug that you've just developed - than the answer is
Patenting. Generally, depends strongly on the industry. In a conservative and a long-run
industries like Medicine / Chemistry/ Biology/Drug Development / Energetics / Car
manufacturing etc patenting is a sure way to go.
On the countrary, in such dynamically changing industries as Internet Technology /
Internet of Things / Web-applications / IT services it is absolutely senseless to patent
anything because the pace of technology is so fast that patents are useless. There you are
probably dealing with protection from copyright law, otherwise, you have to compete on
general basis.
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Mariah Caroline, Water ecologist, Wetland Biologist, Fish scientist

Written Nov 13, 2014
First of all, thank you for innovative. As you think for development also consider securing
your work if your country has a body that protects patents or seals off innovations from
original composers. this not only safe guards your innovation but also secures your piece
from malicious persons. Before you kill yourself, learn about PATENT RIGHTS as provided
in your country and you will be extra rich in the end.
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Ken Jacobsen
Copy cats are the best form of flattery. You should worry about managing the money
constructively that you do make rather than be paranoid about those who are cheating
you.... Your legitimate customers will not like you if you treat everyone like a thief, and
customer loyalty is more valuable that the amount you are cheated. Some loss is the cost of
doing business. No one likes paranoia. Ever shopped at Fry's?
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Greg London, dabbler of inventions

Written Mar 9, 2015
The only legal protections available are patents and copyrights. If your invention is a thing
with new and useful functionality, you could patent it. There are scammers who prey on
people who think they have something patentable when they really dont, so beware. It
usually takes a lawyer to patent something.
If your legendary bilion dollar thing is actually software, you get the benefit of copyright
protection automatically and free. You have to pay something like 50 dollars to register it,
but its a simple form you fill out on the web.
If the thing is actually a service of some kind, like a new idea for an online website, you cant
prevent others from doing the same thing. The best case for that is to simply be the first to
establish a good service and become the defacto standard for everyone. You could create an
online auction site, but most people will go to ebay because its the defacto standard that
everyone else goes to and you want as many people as possible to bid on the thing youre
selling.
Note that you can copyright software. But that only means no one can copy or sell your code
without your permission. It doesnt mean no one can create their own version of a similar
functioning program. You cant sell Angry Birds without the owners permission. But you
dont need their permission to create a game similar to Angry Birds. The only thing you can
do to protect yourself from this is trademark the name of your thingamajig so that no one
can call their version the same name as your version.
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Sashank Reddy
Written Jul 19, 2015
If you have done your market research and are very confident that your invention is worth
billions,
1. File a PATENT ASAP if you already have not.
2. Always sign NDA (Non disclosure agreement) with anyone you reveal your invention to.
3. Then workout your business model as to what you want in return for their investment.
You may not have majority share in the end company but never settle for low share of the
resulting enterprise. Make sure you own a substantial portion of the corporation.
4. Do not be sentimental in business. You need to be a good businessman in additional to a
great inventor to succeed in making money.
5. Make sure the IP stays on your name at all times.
All the best.
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Greg D. Basham, Management Consultant

Great question and I agree with the views that you get on with it.
There are ways to protect intellectual property rights but it does not take long for innovators
to come along as these posts pretty much all note.
I was doing a market assessment study for a workshop run by a mentally challenged group
where the work producing this product was done by workers with serious to mild
challenges. The product is just a regular product but the design to put it together had been
patented by a fellow who donated it to this foundation and went off to retire.
I wanted to explore the option of selling the patent thinking that might be the most brilliant
thing to do if the workshop continuing option was rejected. I was shocked that the first
question from someone who owns a bunch was- has it been tested in court? It hadn't and
the conclusion was that there was little to no value.
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Jeff Kesselman, 15 years in startups doing everything from grunt coding to

CTO
Updated May 23, 2013
Reduce it to practice and patent it.

But recognize that compensation can come in non-obvious ways. I gave an employer
something I had been working on for years. In return I received:
(1) Much better resources to complete it
(2) A primary inventor credit on a patent I didn't have to pay for
(3) A *major* jump in my career
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David Pillnger, Design,manufacture wholesale retail management and general

construction energy
My experience is more internal than external , I think that if you have a good idea then you
should already be aware of your strengths and weaknesses.
So you will need to employ or share your idea in a measured way , make sure your not giving
your great idea to a shark as your angel might actually be a preditor. So BEWARE OF WHO
YOU TEAM UP WITH AND CHOOSE THEM ON THERE SKILLS NOT THERE MONEY.
The rest has been discussed the simple truth is if you have a good idea you can attract other
people to join you and you can establish a company with hundreds of millions of shares
prepare what's required and distribute some shares to who you think is deserving allowing
you to keep control and have excess shares to list your company on the stock exchange and
be a Ledg.... Cause the world needs more Ledgens like you mate.
Good luck , you have some very clever people giving you advice, don't waste it.
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Melvin Wong, Founder of FanXT (Acquired). Global business experience in 17

countries
Written Mar 8, 2015
Running a business is like running a 100m sprint. You win by running faster against your
competitors, not by spreading up your arms and try to stop others from running
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Jeff Gates
You can build your product or service enough to have a working model. This product or
service must be mature enough to sign up your first few customers. All this can be done in a
stealth mode. You dont need the big bang marketing to get started. Repeat the steps
above in each phase of your product or service iterations. Once you have enough
momentum, the idea itself will not be an idea anymore, rather a company. All companies
must fend off competition.
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George Gonzalez
There are VERY, VERY, VERY few inventions of the last 50 years that made substantial
money and are the work of one lone inventor.
Most of the easy things have been invented. Most things nowadays require the development
of special processes, materials, algorithms, extensive development and testing. Involving
experts in mechanicals, materials, processing, packaging, electronics, software, and
manufacturing. Not something any one person can ever be very good at. You need dozens
of experts and millions of dollars to play this game. Unless you personally are dozens of
people and have millions of dollars, the concept of the lone inventor with full ownership of a
major product, that just doesn't exist.
So first, off, it's not a problem that is going to happen.
Even if you did invent the trillion-dollar product, there is no way you can avoid having the
big guys take over. There are companies with skyscrapers full of lawyers and investigators
and lobbyists. It's trivial for the big guy there to wave a finger, and you're dead meat.
Companies like Motorola and Intel and Microsoft have spent billions just on buying up
random technology patents. Odds are you are or a judge can be convinced that you are
infringing on one of their patents, so you're dead meat right out of the gate
All that shouldn't stop you from trying, but do be realistic. There isn't an idea in a hundred
that hasn't already been patented. And there isn't a patent in a hundred by lone inventors
that is ever used.
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Chris Jagers, CEO of Learning Machine

If you "invent" something without bringing it to market, you don't deserve a dime. The value
is entirely in the execution, in making it a commercial reality.
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Andrew Ive
Notice how there were a lot of "ifs" in your question. Each of those ifs need to be resolved
and resolved to the consumers satisfaction before any value is created or available to
monetize.
The people who create that value are those who can monetize it. An idea is not inherently
valuable. Example - I could have told you fifteen years ago about my idea for a book about a
kid who has magical powers and goes to a school for wizards. Without writing, publishing
and marketing the book, that idea is worth a conversation, at most. And if you don't make
your idea happen in the real world by creating it, marketing it and monetizing it - you'll
deserve exactly what you get for the idea - namely, absolutely nothing.
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Anonymous
Written Apr 2, 2014
The question "If I invent something which has a chance of earning billions if I brought to the
the market" itself has 3 hypothetical scenarios in it. Before you even worry about something
like this, you should:
1) Invent something first
2) Bring it to the market
3) Earn billions from it
Keep moving forward. Chances are, when you invented something that you think is really
cool, not many people will see the value in it. Once you bring it to the market, you MAY have
some people's attention to copy it, but mostly it might be close competition but not direct
copy. By the time you have a lot of people using it, you will have people's attention, and
that's when you may have people directly copying you. But guess what, you are way ahead of
the curve, and you might be moving on to keep improving your great idea.
If the secret to your success is about how you did it (a scientific/technology innovation),
then you probably might want to consider a patent. However, sometimes you may have a
great technology, but you don't have any good application, the patent doesn't really serve
any purpose.
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Alok Bhatnagar, Created electric vehicles, pedal electric rickshaws, perennial

solar lanterns.
Written Aug 7, 2015
If you should do a patent search chances are it already has been invented somewhere.
Else, please consider that in order to earn billions, you should have a huge manufacturing
tie up and prior to that it must be prototyped, patented, it sould have proprietory ingredient
not noticeable / copieable elsewhere.
You then also need an organisation to arrange funds, source, to make, to sell, and to service(
if applicable).
But these are hardware things, if you make an app or a product like Facebook you then are
in a different league as not many shall have valid suggestions.
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Robert J. Kolker
First develop your idea, then defend it later. We have laws that protect property rights.
You can use them when and if it becomes necessary. If your idea (whatever it is) is so good,
then show the world.
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John Chow, Architect, HK Expat, ENFP, Australian

Written Jul 9, 2015
(just something light hearted in light of the other amazing answers on this question)
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Kevin Mann
Entrepreneurship is a rough and tumble business. Your concept of "what I deserve" may be
holding you up. Since you have a great idea, what you deserve right now is: the experience
of trying to make a business out of it. No one will cheat you out of that.
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Lisa Smith
I will quote here and although it is a slogan and a cliche thrown out like crazy, but I think
when it comes to doing things that we think we should do, only about 1% actually make the
change, the rest just talk about it, live their lives in the rat race and then finally shut up
when it is too late.
SoJust do it!
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Jeremy Finney
Written Aug 13, 2015
File for a patent. Patent lawyers are horrendously expensive, but you can do it yourself if
you've got the time. Just google it and you'll find links to free patent outlines. I did it once.
It's not prohibitively difficult, but it is very time consuming. The best piece of advice is to be
as descriptive as possible. When you're done you just mail it in with a check for the filing
fee. (Just google U.S. patent office for the fee and address info.)
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Manish Vaidya
Nothing. An idea is just the starting point. Execution is key. Get executing and get to market
faster.
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Matthew Swaringen
This nonsense about what someone "deserves" and desire to prevent others from emulating,
which is the normal function of any market, is ridiculous. Only by ideas being shared and
built off incrementally is any advancement possible. Lets consider this "deserve" word for a
minute. Do children who get cancer deserve it? Do those who starve? What does it even
mean to "deserve" something outside the context of relationships? Deserve is only
meaningful when there is a prior obligation, and obligations arise from prior actions and
agreements that others voluntarily make. Obligations don't arise because you assert your
awesomeness, or even when you get the state to punish others for copying via patent or
copyright law.
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Sam Williams
If you really want to protect yourself, then discuss this with an Intellectual Property
attorney. He will help you with nondisclosure agreements and also determine what kind of
IP property rights need to be secured. These can be anything from a patent or something as
simple as a copyright notice.
However, plan on this costing you a minimum of $300 for a consult.
If you cannot afford to do this, then read books on what inventors need to know about
Intellectual Property.
Think of it this way, if the guy who invented Napster, which eventually was out done by
iTunes, would have applied for a patent, he would have been safe.
Yes execute. But know that their is a 1000 lb gorilla who will out do you, unless you have a
patent to stop them.
If nothing else, with a patent, the gorilla will have to pay your a royalty.
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Ric Richardson, Inventor

Written May 4, 2015
There are only two paths to success assuming your idea is the real deal.
1. If you move faster than anyone else or
2. You protect the idea by patenting it and then find the partners to execute successfully.
In my world I am not a type A business execution type. I will never beat a driven type A guy
who has my idea or a multinational corporation that decides to just take my idea and run
with it.
So I use strategy 2.
I make sure I patent the idea, then I find an execution expert... someone who has been
successful with a product or technology like mine before and knows how to take it all the
way.. and then I help them find funding... to grease the rails.
In my experience all great ideas, need a great execution team and funding... without all
three you need inordinate amounts of luck or if you are honest the idea is not that strong...
but ideas like sucking power from the ionosphere, 2000/1 compression, getting rid of
passwords or a pervasive implementation of Artificial Intelligence are not going to happen
unless all three elements are in place...
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Alan Cohen
To quote Richard Branson, "Screw it. Just do it!"

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Chirag Jain
Always keep these two things in Mind

I) Product can be Patended , but not the Idea
II ) If someone is doing better than you which was yours Idea ....then It was . never your
Idea
Smartphone was The idea of IBM but Apple had excelled in that field
E-commerce was the Idea of Jeff but dozen are there in the field .
You will Face Competitor in every field . Only thing you can do is reduce the Possoblity of
facing Defeat .
Kodak was a leader once now have no existence
Just never stop . Keep working . Keep Finding Problem and Solve it ASAP .
If there is some issue with your Idea/Product , someone else can solve it before you and
make it better
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Jim Patterson
Written Dec 4, 2014
Patents can be controversial in many quarters, but they're also a great way to protect your
invention while you test the market.
One quick, dirty and cheap option is a provisional patent application. This gives an inventor
a year to see if their idea is good enough to justify filing an much more expensive full patent
application.
It's best to talk with a patent attorney to learn more about the hows and the whys of filing a
provisional patent application. I suggest contacting the SBA. They can often put you in
touch with a volunteer patent attorney in your area who can help you out. You can also cold
call some patent law firms in your area and ask if they have a pro bono program. All
licensed attorneys in the US are encouraged to do pro bono work, and big firms often
encourage it, especially among their newer associates (since it gives them some good real
world training).
Best of luck.
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Anonymous
I don't believe anyone answered the question. 99% of the replies respond with "Don't worry
about it," but this is a serious issue. Some people only get one chance at the brass ring, and
it would peev me to no end if I saw no money from it. I'm no expert, but many problems can
be addressed (not avoided, sadly) by filing a patent (if applicable; provisional, at least),
contacting lawyers with experience (and satisfied clients), and dealing with reputable
people. Best of luck.
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Walter Lamberson
Written Aug 25, 2015
Everything is about execution. Ideas alone are rarely worth much. "If you invented the
facebook, you would have invented the facebook"
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Mike Laursen, Semi-geeky, libertarian independent

The answer is right there in your question -- Get busy bringing your invention to market.
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Josh Jacobson, CEO ItsPlatonic.com, the #1 Place to Make Friends Online. I blog
at ThinkingO...
You DON'T deserve it. You deserve exactly how much you earn based on execution and
money earned.
Does the first search engine deserve billions because Google is so successful?
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If I Invent Something Which Has A Chance of Earning Billions If Brought To Market, What Should I Do To Prevent Others From Cheating Me Out of What I Deserve

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If I invent something which has a chance of

Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder and Wikia cofounder

Benjamin Shyong, Founder at Meddik.com

Matthew Stibbe, Founded TurbineHQ.com, and ArticulateMarketing.com

Last week an accountant urged me to get VC funding for my business

Just my two pennies. I could be wrong. My wife says it happens sometimes.

Pontus Berg, Telco entrepreneur

Several people said it already; realistically, you can't.

Omg, stop obsessing over your idea getting stolen.

3.7k Views View Upvotes

Here's a funny but true story:

Matthew Putman, Founder and CEO Nanotronics Imaging

Wouter Smet, Growth hacker at Engagor

Erica Friedman, The Librarian is IN, 5

Todd Gardiner, Photographer and questioner of too much privacy

Baker Kawesa, Software Developer

Patents + trademarks + execution + urgency + LUCK = Youve got a chance at success.

Yosu Cadilla, Internet Marketing Expert

Dave Robinson, 25+ year career as an Aeronautical Industry Professional

Antony Chen, Started up a startup

hopefully this explains the conflict of interest created... Chuckle:-)

Alx Klive, Entrepreneur / Purveyor of Ideas

Apple "stole" a lot from Xerox in its early beginnings.

Kam Layup, Investor, Producer, Dad

Craig Pearson, Co-Founder Private Wealth Systems

Become the best 'birther' of that I idea.

Ezhil Arasan Manoharan

Kevin Moriarty, Inventor

1.1k Views View Upvotes

Zoran Petrovic, Invent yourself first.

Thomas James McGee

Richard Pettit, Technologist, Genealogist.

This question has been answered to death, but I'll add my 2.

Andrew Bayon, Health Influencer. Feel Better, Look Better, Be Better

Thomas Papakostas, Founder of R&D CORE Limited

Levi Thornton, Build startups. I consult and mentor others

Christopher Reiss, Interested in movies, technology and culture. Founder at

To put a bit of a finer point on the other answers here,

Jeremy Collake, Entrepreneurial Software Engineer

Andrii Buvailo, +5 years of R&D experience in the field of sensor and

Mariah Caroline, Water ecologist, Wetland Biologist, Fish scientist

Greg London, dabbler of inventions

Greg D. Basham, Management Consultant

Jeff Kesselman, 15 years in startups doing everything from grunt coding to

Reduce it to practice and patent it.

David Pillnger, Design,manufacture wholesale retail management and general

Melvin Wong, Founder of FanXT (Acquired). Global business experience in 17

Chris Jagers, CEO of Learning Machine

Alok Bhatnagar, Created electric vehicles, pedal electric rickshaws, perennial

John Chow, Architect, HK Expat, ENFP, Australian

Ric Richardson, Inventor

To quote Richard Branson, "Screw it. Just do it!"

Always keep these two things in Mind

Mike Laursen, Semi-geeky, libertarian independent

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