legalI am trying to present my unpatented idea to Google. It is about a software that uses their search result and cannot be implemented without their help. So a worry is they may steal my idea and do it themselves. I am quite sure they won’t sign an NDA. But if I can prove (through email records, etc) that they used my idea, will it give me a legal leverage for compensation?
You can establish (through a paper-trail) that an idea was originally yours, but that does not mean you can prevent someone from stealing it. Only legal constructs like patents or NDAs can give your legal protection from someone stealing an idea. (Patents are slow, expensive but are solid; NDAs are quick, cheap but less solid.)
Email records can be manipulated and may not be accepted as authoritative proof.
If you want to create a record that will stand up to all scrutiny, a sure way is to take a classified advertisement in newspaper with good circulation and publish the idea there. That will create an indisputable record. (Of course that means you’re begging to have your idea ripped off.)
This is not legal advice. You should consult with a qualified attorney about your situation.
I was just listening to a presentation by a manager at Google X.
https://soundcloud.com/ecorner/astro-teller-celebrating
An interesting point he brought up is that Google values cost efficiency when looking into new projects. They’re weary of false-successes because it costs a lot of money to find out that an idea doesn’t work. This means that 90% of the new ideas from their own lab never get worked on.
A lot of times, a larger company will focus on acquisition over innovation because you’re buying something that’s already market-proven.
So maybe that’ll ease your nerves a little in reaching out to a company as large as Google.
Good luck
One question many small businesses fail to ask (or understand) is:
If you have a great, comfortable job at a big company, why risk it on an idea?? Why not advise that the small business guy to spend his hard-earned money and precious time proving it out, creating a user base, or whatever - and then simply spend some corporate bucks to buy it? Corporate bucks are like fake money, or shopping with someone else’s credit card. There is no bill to pay! With all the “great ideas” out there, that seems like the better bet.
Most likely, Google would like to hear your pitch and help you than risk their time/money/reputation/etc. on your idea when they already have tons of ideas, lots of money going into idea development and a few successes surrounded by many failures - like everyone else. They should spread out that cost, right?
That said, if your idea is easy for them to implement/copy/steal, yes they may do that. One problem you have - they may have already thought of it and are working on it (there are a lot of smart people over at Google).
Or maybe they simply will disagree and think it’s a bad idea. I’ve heard lots of bad ideas that have gone nowhere. But to answer your core question - there’s very little you can do without an NDA, pending patent, trademark, etc. unless you can hire better lawyers than Google. Just sayin.
bold move:
If your idea only works when google is part of it, you could publish your idea (i.e. blogpost) and send them the link.
If you write it up well enough you could increase the chances of them giving feedback.
An NDA doesn’t protect you in this situation. You need something more like a reviewers agreement, whereby they agree to discuss your idea, and you retain all rights to anything which is proposed during the discussion. (This is a approximation, you need an IP lawyer to progress)
Idea without an execution is worth almost nothing in today’s world. I write it from experience. Had a lot great(some companies got very rich executing them) ideas. When I really did nothing instead of thinking about it and talking with friend, got no results.
No matter if You cannot execute because of lack of money, time, contacts, etc. So it is simply better to focus on ideas You can make happen right now, at least start it.
Of course great idea with even mediocre execution can You make You earn a lot of money, no other way around.
To illustrate this better You can look at this “concept” formula. You can change numbers a bit but the sense stays.
weak_idea = 0
mediocre_idea = 1
good_idea = 10
excellent_idea = 100
weak_execution = 0
mediocre_execution = 10
good_execution = 1000
excellent_execution = 100 000
output = idea * execution
There are a lot of people with great ideas so chances are that somebody is already working on Yours. Maybe mentioned company. I am not patents expert, especially that law is different in my country, but only idea is no enough to register one. There are also a lot of patents that are implemented in other way thus not make You 100% safe. Especially in software world.
Asking to anyone to sign NDA without knowing a bit about topic is not going to work. As stated previously, asked side may be already working on that. Hope that helps anyway, though maybe not with this project.
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