intellectual-property, crowd-fundingCrowd funding seems to be an interesting possibility for financing, but I’m having problems identifying intellectual property to protect my idea.
I am building a web platform to help demand, identify the best suppliers using amongst others technologies like Geo localization.
The business model is pretty straightforward. Suppliers pay a fee to be referenced on the platform and be visible to the demand.
This is the core project, but on top of that I have many ideas that could be plugged in.
What are the questions I should ask myself to identify what can be the object of intellectual property?
This is a really difficult question to answer in our format, and I would suggest you speak with an IP professional (a patent attorney or agent, namely) to whom you can disclose your invention. Intellectual property is a pretty serious matter, and you want to make sure it’s done right the first time. I know a few such professionals who do initial consultations for very cheap (or even free), and it’s definitely worth it.
There are three areas of concern for something like this.
This doesn’t sound like too big a deal for you. Copyrights protect artwork (your website design, for instance).
Pertinently, you get an implicit copyright any time you create anything artistic. Registering it lets you litigate it, so it’s worth it for things that are likely to be stolen (and it’s cheap–$35, I think), but probably not worth the hassle if you aren’t worried about your artistic designs, or if they’re likely to change.
If something bad does happen and you didn’t register it, the only difference is how much you pay for an expedited registration.
Regardless, I’d pin on the footer “Copyright (c) 2016 Your Name Here.” You don’t have to register to do that, but it serves as nice notice if ever something does happen.
Trademark gets a little more relevant for you. Like copyrights, you get an implicit trademark any time you use an identifying mark in commerce. But, especially for a web service, it’s probably worth grabbing a trademark on your company name or logo, because that broadens the geographical scope of your coverage.
They’re a bit pricey, so it’s still more or less up to you whether you’re worried about people stealing your name, but at around $500, it’s probably good insurance.
This is really what you’re asking about, and this is what Austin addresses in his answer.
This is where you really don’t want to mess around, and speaking with a patent agent or attorney (no real difference between the two for patents, but an attorney could help you with a trademark as well) is a good idea.
That said, there are some basic rules about patents:
Novelty: You can’t get a patent on something that isn’t new to the world. The patent office will do a search to make sure what you’re claiming has never been done before (by anyone, anywhere, written about in any language), and if it has, you won’t be able to get a patent with those exact claims.
Non-obviousness: Similarly, you can’t get a patent on something that would be “obvious” to someone “skilled in the art.” This is a little more subjective, but essentially, if there’s prior art for one invention, and prior art for another invention, and your invention would result from mixing those two together, and it would be a simple leap for someone in your field to mix them, you can’t get a patent. Yours has to teach the world something, essentially.
Disclosures: Not really in the same category as the previous two, but still important, are disclosures. In the United States, you can patent something as long as it was publicly disclosed less than one year ago. Other countries aren’t so generous, and a public disclosure means immediate forfeit of patent rights. This is why patents are so time-critical: if you launch your crowd funding campaign and tell the world about your invention, you’d better already have all the patents you want in the pipeline.
Ultimately, to Austin’s point, you need to look over your service, review what might be novel and non-obvious, and apply for patents on that. You don’t have to wait until you get the patents (likely several years down the road), but you want to get an application out.
A provisional application is a cheaper way of getting the ability to patent something down the road, if that’s helpful. But it won’t get you a patent, just the filing date.
Again, I can’t give a more detailed answer than that in this format (I’d have to know your invention), but this is what to think about. I’d definitely reach out to a local patent professional to go over all three of these.
I would suggest you need research top domain availability. After that ask yourself if any of the available domains fit your project. You need to secure the domain that fits your idea the best as well as any possible supporting domain names. You can copyright your Websites domain to protect your brand of intellectual property but more importantly if you don’t want anyone using the same name you must look into a Trademark.
To identify what Intellectual Property (IP) is, ask yourself what you believe is unique about your product or service. IP law suits have to prove that alleged offending companies have copied something in a quantitative or uniquely qualitative way. So, think about the processes involved with your service. What are the “known quantities or qualities”? That means what pieces of the process are pre existing industry quantities, and where in those processes do you believe you are creating unique and new value. Find the start and end points of those parameters, and you will have your IP.
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