Developing & Protecting Your Ideas

[Henry Osadzinski]

Ok, so you've got a great idea, you want to turn it into a business. What next? While there are many aspects to consider taking the first step to turning your plan into a source of income, one of the most pressing questions is how do you make sure you keep what's yours.

If you've got the legal expertise or you've been through the process yourself, please do share what you know. How did you sort through the options when safeguarding your intellectual property. What did you feel it was necessary to protect? Any surprising pitfalls or opportunities that came out of it?

 

[Team Leith Training]

I have a friend of mine who works in Patents as an attorney in the pharmaceutical industry. I can tell you applying for patents is an EXTREMELY costly business. I know as i had a few ideas i was investigating too.

I am not sure but i believe you may need other patents for US law as well as UK Law.
Not such an issue if its a service your offering (you cannot protect that anyway). A trade mark is not so complicated. Recipies you protect by not telling anyone whats in it.
Products on the other hand, very expensive.

 

[Paul_Rosser]

I work with lots of startups who have invented/developed new products/software
and whilst quite a few had looked at patents as Team Leith said the costs of these is often an issue as until they start trading funds are very limited.

One option which I have recently been working on with a patent attorney is for these firms to make a claim for R&D tax relief, which gives them the funds to get a patent granted prior to going to market.

This approach doesn't work for everyone as you can only claim for staff costs, subcontractors etc and to keep costs down a lot of people developing new products tend to not pay themselves a salary to keep costs down, but for some can be very useful.