I’ve got an idea. Actually, I’ve got lots of ideas, some of which involve jarbabyj and a pot of clown white and a 5 lb bag of glitter, but we don’t have to get into that right now, do we?
I have an idea. I wish to develop it, and then present it to the people who might buy it from me and use it and make me a gazillion dollars. It’s an advertising campaign idea. If it was a THING, I’d patent it. THAT I understand. But this is a “concept”, a pitch for an ad campaign.
How do I protect it, until it’s in a form I can present to an ad agency- AND- how do I protect it THEN, so that the little scumbuckets at said agency- which for the purposes of this discussion we might call Bialystock and Bloom-snicker- don’t steal my fire.
ANY clue on how to protect intellectual property like this? Please enlighten me, oh Dopers of the Deep. I await thine offers with baited breath.
Thank you in advance for any thoughts in this matter,
Sincerely Yours,
Cartooniverse
You should probably talk to a lawyer who specializes in these things - patent and trademark lawyers can easily be found in yer trusty ole yellow pages phonebook.
Rules vary from state to state, province to province, country to country.
While there are ways for you to protect all manner of intellectual property, it’s harder to protect written proposal material. Before you submit it to anyone, be very careful and read their disclaimers carefully. Some companies retain the right to use your ideas once you’ve submitted them.
I have used non-disclosure agreements and other legal papers to protect my intellectual property. That being said, anything you do to protect your intellectual property usually end up useful after someone has taken your idea and run with it. At that point, you get to sue for punitive damages. Sometimes the paperwork and the disclaimers are enough to warn people off. Other times, they see a good idea and figure they’ll pay you off in a nice settlement.
Not to make you paranoid or anything
Best of luck with your ideas. If ever you do end up with jarbabyj, paint, and glitter, we want pictures. And you’re more than welcome to put a restriction on their circulation.
As an -ahem- advertising and marketing communications professional, I have to advise you you’re on pretty shaky ground here.
The general concept is “you can not copyright an idea,only the execution.” For example, let’s say you have a dynamite concept for a TV commercial for a car that includes an icy road, a dozen penguins and two MTV-types. You pitch your idea to the car company or ad agency. They pat you on the head and send you away.
Six months later you see a commercial that includes a snowy road, 4 penguins and three soap opera types. You also hear subtle changes in the narrator’s words. Are you screwed? Well, a really good lawyer might be able to get a nuisance settlement, but otherwise, you’re pretty much shafted.
Oddly enough, the thing which will strengthen your case is also the thing that will weaken it – more detail. You start with a concept, then a treatment, a storyboard, a demo and finally a full-fledged dummy. The dummy is obviously the strongest proof that you had the idea first, but it’s also the easiest thing to change the details on, thereby proving that the bad guys developed their own execution.
At this point I’d strongly suggest you consult a lawyer who specializes in intellectual property.
Patents are for ideas, and copyrights for the expression of ideas, as you rightly said. Your creative work is protected by copyright from the moment it is “fixed”, or put into a form such that it can be viewed or otherwise percieved, even if observing it requires another device like a VCR. Registration isn’t absolutely necessary to protect your idea (with major caveats, which I’ll discuss in a second). Even placing a copyright notice on your work isn’t absolutely necessary, but it can be helpful.
About registration: while it’s not necessary, it is the “key to the courthouse door”, so to speak. If you register promptly, within 5 years of creation, that registration will be taken as prima facie evidence that you’re the author, should there ever be any dispute. Document, document, document.
As kunilou said, as a practical matter, you can’t prevent someone who hears your idea from making changes, using the substance of your idea, and saying, “So sue me”. It’s a risk you have to decide if you’re willing to take. If you want an iron-clad agreement from the company you’re pitching to, well, good luck; they’re making plenty of money already without jumping through your hoops, so don’t expect them to bend over backwards to protect your interests.
Two more significant things: number one, U.S. Copyright Office FAQ. Number two, I’m not a lawyer and this is SO not legal advice. Like, totally.
I am an intellectual property lawyer. But I am not a US IP lawyer.
What Max Torgue said was on the money, as far as my jurisdiction goes.
The idea has to be given expression before it can be protected. Example: if Plato’s works were protected by copyright, and I copied his works verbatim, then I infringe his copyright.
But if I copy his ideas, and give them new form, then that’s fine.
There are some limits upon that, which I won’t go into here.
But you need to “clothe” your idea before it gets protection. And even then, someone else can use that idea, but in a different material form.
Dave- you raise an excellent point,and one I’ve been considering. Here’s what’ I am thinking.
I am already working on one dummy mock-up of the ad. I can easily do a few more. My concern is this- HOW do I protect this as I am doing the mock-ups? I am going to hire a guy to do the computer manipulations, it’s beyond me.
Or…I could go to the man I know here in town. Hmmmm- I’ll hijack my own thread and ask a follow-up question. Should I go with a stranger over a friend in a situation like this?
Thanks, Dave and everyone else. As soon as I figure out this last part, I will proceed apace.
I don’t think you can really protect it, except to tell them that you have a high-powered attorney on retainer that has won these kind of cases. I can think of at least three cases that are similar to this:
Cecil comments on a case involving the Kroftts and Mcdonalds:
