Quizzes & Puzzles4 mins ago
website idea protection/developement
Hello all.
Ihave an Idea for a web site which would be interactive. What I am wondering is would I be able to protect the idea through copy right or is there another way or ways. I also have very little I.T. exsperience and would have to engage a site/program engineer. Would for example a confidentiality agreement be appropriate. I have noticed with all the big players that they have their followers. i.e ebay so what stops another company from stealing or plagerizeing the contents or more importantly the very fundemental process of it`s software and how it interacts with its costomers. I am after a general indication at this stage
so I thank you in advance for your time.
Ihave an Idea for a web site which would be interactive. What I am wondering is would I be able to protect the idea through copy right or is there another way or ways. I also have very little I.T. exsperience and would have to engage a site/program engineer. Would for example a confidentiality agreement be appropriate. I have noticed with all the big players that they have their followers. i.e ebay so what stops another company from stealing or plagerizeing the contents or more importantly the very fundemental process of it`s software and how it interacts with its costomers. I am after a general indication at this stage
so I thank you in advance for your time.
Answers
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2nd Part...
Confi
Confi
08:48 Sat 20th Feb 2010
Can you protect an idea? No. Copyright doesn't protect ideas, only the form in which they are expressed.
If you want a general indication, here's the basic blocks of intellectual property in England and Wales:
Copyright- If your work qualifies for copyright (I can elaborate more), it is free and automatic as soon as you have created something. It could be a literary, musical, dramatic or artistic work, and lasts until 70 years after the death of the last surviving author. It protects against substantial copying of you work, although there are some exceptions.
Trademarks- They are either UK wide TMs or European TMs. You have to apply to register a TM onto the TM Register, and it costs money. They have to meet certain criteria (I can explain them if you need me to), but if they are registrable, you can stop anyone using your TM in the course of trade on identical or similar goods. If you want an EU TM, it costs more. If you want a TM outside of the EU, you have to apply in each country separately, which is a 'ball-ache'.
Passing Off- Because not everybody can afford to register a TM (or the mark might not be registrable because it's descriptive etc), there's an alternative action called passing off. This is where you have been trading under a name, and have acquired goodwill- like a reputation, a reason that people know who you are and return to you for more business. It's harder to prove than TM infringement because you have to prove you have this goodwill (hence why registering a TM is a good plan), but you can use this action if you miss out on a TM.
If you want a general indication, here's the basic blocks of intellectual property in England and Wales:
Copyright- If your work qualifies for copyright (I can elaborate more), it is free and automatic as soon as you have created something. It could be a literary, musical, dramatic or artistic work, and lasts until 70 years after the death of the last surviving author. It protects against substantial copying of you work, although there are some exceptions.
Trademarks- They are either UK wide TMs or European TMs. You have to apply to register a TM onto the TM Register, and it costs money. They have to meet certain criteria (I can explain them if you need me to), but if they are registrable, you can stop anyone using your TM in the course of trade on identical or similar goods. If you want an EU TM, it costs more. If you want a TM outside of the EU, you have to apply in each country separately, which is a 'ball-ache'.
Passing Off- Because not everybody can afford to register a TM (or the mark might not be registrable because it's descriptive etc), there's an alternative action called passing off. This is where you have been trading under a name, and have acquired goodwill- like a reputation, a reason that people know who you are and return to you for more business. It's harder to prove than TM infringement because you have to prove you have this goodwill (hence why registering a TM is a good plan), but you can use this action if you miss out on a TM.
2nd Part...
Patents- You don't really need to know much about this horribly convoluted and picky area of law, but suffice it to say that patents are very difficult to obtain, last for 25 years (unless it's a drug patent) and allow only you to manufacture/licence your goods. Not really applicable to you here.
Confidentiality- A sub-species of copyright, confidentiality is often used in the production of large manuscripts or works where groups of people oversee its development and there is scope for secrets to slip out- think of Harry Potter books when sent to proofreaders.
So, your first question:
1- an idea is not copyrightable.
2- using a confidentiality agreement is unnecessary here. The point of confidentiality is to prevent facts being leaked, not to prevent people seeing computer code. The Frosties recipe and the Coca Cola formula are protected by confidentiality, because if they were public knowledge, you could not protect them any other way. This leads me on to your next question...
3- Copyright is what protects computer code from being stolen/plagiarised. It is a literary work in copyright, subject to its originality, and so anyone who takes a substantial part of it could be sued for damages and made to remove the code from the website(s). It's easy to prove too, because the code will be on the websites themselves; this has happened in a few cases I could mention. When you contract the software engineer, ensure you have a contractual clause stating that the copyright vested in all work created lies with the contractor, not the 'employee'. This is also a common law principle, and an exception to the 'first author as copyright holder' principle.
Any other questions, just ask.
Patents- You don't really need to know much about this horribly convoluted and picky area of law, but suffice it to say that patents are very difficult to obtain, last for 25 years (unless it's a drug patent) and allow only you to manufacture/licence your goods. Not really applicable to you here.
Confidentiality- A sub-species of copyright, confidentiality is often used in the production of large manuscripts or works where groups of people oversee its development and there is scope for secrets to slip out- think of Harry Potter books when sent to proofreaders.
So, your first question:
1- an idea is not copyrightable.
2- using a confidentiality agreement is unnecessary here. The point of confidentiality is to prevent facts being leaked, not to prevent people seeing computer code. The Frosties recipe and the Coca Cola formula are protected by confidentiality, because if they were public knowledge, you could not protect them any other way. This leads me on to your next question...
3- Copyright is what protects computer code from being stolen/plagiarised. It is a literary work in copyright, subject to its originality, and so anyone who takes a substantial part of it could be sued for damages and made to remove the code from the website(s). It's easy to prove too, because the code will be on the websites themselves; this has happened in a few cases I could mention. When you contract the software engineer, ensure you have a contractual clause stating that the copyright vested in all work created lies with the contractor, not the 'employee'. This is also a common law principle, and an exception to the 'first author as copyright holder' principle.
Any other questions, just ask.
You need to patent your idea. The law based on software patent is based on the other patent laws under the US Patent and Trademark Office. Here you get detailed instructions about the procedure of software patent.
http://
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