360-2020: IP e io
“If you discussed 360-2020 with them, aren’t you afraid they’ll steal your ideas?”
This was after I met with some smart technologists and investors.
“Well, I stated clearly that 360-2020 is a registered trademark and the patent application for the system itself is filed,” I replied. “Also, without my involvement there is NO way anyone can replicate the 360-2020 system or business model since the most important and critical core of it is something only I know and can do.”
Unfortunately, this is the negative side of business: some unprincipled types try to steal your ideas, pass off your hard work and innovation as their own and then make money from it. Ideas and brainstorms themselves have no trademark, patent or other intellectual property rights. However, actual logos and systems do so wherein possible find a good IP lawyer and ask them for advice.
Yes, it costs quite a lot of money but may prove to be worthwhile.
As for being realistic about our inventions and the potential timelines involved, I refer to James Dyson the inventor of the Dyson vacuum cleaner:
The Dual Cyclone vacuum cleaner came from a simmering frustration that took nearly twenty-five years to boil over. I channelled this frustration into something practical. I started with a crude cardboard cyclone which appeared to work and this led to machined prototypes as I refined the design. Fifteen years and 5,127 prototypes later I had perfected a vacuum cleaner that didn’t lose suction, the Dual Cyclone. It took 15 years of swearing, struggling, creating, being knocked back by several short-sighted companies and inventing to get to this stage today — James Dyson
The positive aspect of sharing ideas with the RIGHT PEOPLE (i.e., smart, honorable and trustworthy) is that they can either help you accelerate and achieve the realization of your invention and / or they can introduce you to other people who can. The negative risks of sharing with the WRONG PEOPLE (i.e., clueless, dishonorable and untrustworthy) is that they will either steal your ideas and defame you in the process and / or they waste your time.
The latter has happened to me which explains a certain amount of wariness even if I am, by nature, an optimist and enjoy sharing knowhow.
It should also be noted that inventors can take measures to safeguard their brands and inventions but even the likes of Twitter can’t trademark “tweet”:
* http://www.mediabistro.com/webnewser/social_nets/tweet_trademarked_not_so_fast_124860.asp?c=rss
So what arose from my interactions with those smart technologists and investors?
They suggested some helpful options:
(1.) Computer algorithms worth looking into.
(2.) Some people to get in touch with.
(3.) HTML5.
Tags: 360-2020, Dyson vacuum cleaner, Intellectual Property, Twitter trademark tweet
