Ask HN: How to Protect Ideas and Implementation? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to Protect Ideas and Implementation?

22 pointsmrg3_201341 comments

I have an idea that I think is unique to solve a business problem (yes, it may not be unique afterall) - but as a solo founder, I need to have some protection so someone doesn't copy the exact things (UIs and backend implementation). Can anyone provide any pointers how best to build some protection after product goes live ? I worry larger players may just copy what I do. Are patents a good idea ? Less likely I could do it, if it's expensive though

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The advice is generally that (1) ideas are worthless until they are well-implemented (and even then, might be worthless); (2) if your idea is truly so easily-copyable, then it's probably not an idea worth trying to protect; and (3) your time is MUCH better spent actually building it and getting users than worrying about this stuff.

You unique ability to translate the idea into a product that people love, and deliver a service that wow's them, is far more valuable than the idea itself.

Of course there are caveats for things that are truly hard innovations, but from the sounds of things here you're more worried about UI (will always be easily copyable, no protection possible) and back-end (which doesn't matter unless it's some completely novel and order-of-magnitude improvement thing, in which case THAT's the true interesting part of your idea).

I personally do think what I have is order-of-magnitude improvement over anything I have seen. But I may be biased too.

>>>>You unique ability to translate the idea into a product that people love, and deliver a service that wow's them, is far more valuable than the idea itself.

I agree with this. It is more about demoing this to large corp (which do not have anything like my product) just taking it away and executing the idea down the road. My hope is to sell to them eventually

This lecture by Kawasaki addresses the topic: https://youtu.be/HHjgK6p4nrw

If a large corporation steals your idea, you can try to sue if you have taken measures to protect your idea, and in rare cases, even succeed. However, it won't really get you any further.

Hi mrg3_2013,

I've been in this boat,

I agree/disagree with what others say, on one hand yes, most ideas are a dime a dozen and that meme which has been parroted ad nauseaum applies.

OTOH, someone with experience and deep knowledge in a field could come up with a really nice and clever solution to a problem that's potentially worth lots of $$$. Be aware that instead of an "idea", you may be giving out a very expensive consultation for free.

Examples:

It would be nice to be able teleport from one place to another (shitty idea)

vs.

I actually found a way to teleport things from one place to another (not shitty at all)

If your idea looks more like the 2nd example then I'd suggest you take adequate measures to protect what belongs to you and safeguard your right to make money off it.

A contract is your friend. Are you demoing something under the common understanding that it's going to be acquired later? Put that into a contract. Do you want the contents of your presentation to not be disclosed afterwards? Put that into a contract. Whatever makes you feel comfortable, you own your game :).

Best of luck!

This is what I was told by startup mentors and have come to appreciate as well in my experience.

I would also add that while there is some small risk of someone least copying your idea, it's not necessarily a bad thing. If someone else is doing it, it validates that there is a market. You can also expect that if your idea becomes successful it will be copied at some point.

There's actually much more risk in not learning the practicality of it and refining it by talking to as many people as possible than there is from it being copied.

>>>There's actually much more risk in not learning the practicality of it and refining it by talking to as many people as possible than there is from it being copied.

Interesting nugget here. Thanks

So are you saying that OP should be able to share their idea right here without fear?

I think it's rational to worry that someone else will hear the idea and implement it faster/better.

There's this myth that ideas are scarce, or hard to get, or valuable. In the real world that's not true. Ideas are very cheap, very plentiful, and very common.

Ideas are worth nothing. Execution is everything. Picking the -right- idea is a skill. Fruitlessly following some idea into financial oblivion is a weakness.

I would suggest all Ideas first pass a simple test;

A) who is the market for this product. Specifically. Tell me their names what the do, what pain they have (that this solves)

B) can these people afford this product? Sure lots of people want to orbit the earth, how many can afford it?

C) can you reach these people to tell them about your product for finite amounts of money?

D) do you have the resources to develop this, and take it to market?

E) understanding that there's a 90% chance this fails, and your resources will be lost, can you afford to fail?

99% of Ideas will fail one or many of the above tests. That's fine, let it go, you'll have another one tomorrow.

Trust me, copying is the least of your worries.

As a solo creator, I've been working with a lawyer to create some intellectual property. I'm not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. Here are some options as I understand them, but do your own research.

A utility patent covers a new invented item or process. They are the hardest and most expensive to get. A design patent protects the way something looks. It's easier and cheaper to get. If you wanted bang/buck you might consider a design patent on your UX if there is a strong connection between UX and utility.

A DIY "provisional patent application" can be filed for a utility patent. This is basically creating a description of your invention, and submitting to the USPTO who will file it without looking at it. You then have 12 months to create a legitimate patent application referencing this provisional application and you get retroactive protection. Of course the provisional application is only as good as you make it. And if you rely on it when filing a patent, and it has some flaws, you get the flaws. You can shoot yourself in the foot this way.

When/If you create a manual, it is automatically protected by copyright law. You can go further and file a copyright registration for the document. This can serve as prior art and make it more challenging for others to patent your work.

Thank you so much! This was very helpful. DIY "provisional patent application" feels like a good insurance. If there's something of worth, you file an year later. If you get no customers, the idea was dead anyways and I assume you can avoid filing. Is that correct ?

A patent is not meaningful as protection unless you also have the wherewithal to go through the legal process. Your idea of what is not only patentable, but also defendable in a court against a better funded opposition may not be realistic.

(But a patent application could help you as a form marketing.)

Yes BUT… suppose you file a provisional patent, and do a slight pivot/change in how you do things. Then the provisional patent might not apply, or might be too restrictive. This is where a lawyer can help. Still, this is a strategy that lawyers understand, and it can still be a quick and cheap way to cover your ass. And you can say “Patent Pending”.

Do you know if there are startups that specialize in helping startups go through this ? I got one reference below that I am going to look into more. If your reference can be shared, pls do

I'm just paying a lawyer out of pocket that came recommended through a trusted contact.

A few comments:

1. If your idea is truly novel, i.e., you have invented something new, then you can patent it. But the question then becomes which geographies. For e.g., if you patent your work in Country X, then it is not protected in other countries. You will have to file in each country's patent office separately. If your idea is truly novel, then consider the costs of global filing of patents and evaluate against the benefits.

2. Software and algorithms are not patentable in many jurisdictions. e.g., India. Since you mention UI and backend implementation, it is very likely that it won't be patentable in many jursdictions that prohibit sofware/algorithm patents. For a more detailed analysis on software patentability conditions see: [1]

3. For sofware, you can take reasonable precautions against blatant copying by

- partitioning your software into server-side implementation that runs in hosts that you control and manage entirely

- client side software that requires run-time license keys (to control and keep track of usage, trial versions etc.,)

- focusing on security in your system from day 1 (includes source code security, release management, encryption, key management/distribution etc., some aspects of this fashionably called CI/CD or DevOps)

Having said all this, ideas are truly worthless. Iterating your product with paying customers is the hallmark of good execution. Execution is gold.

And remember: Most people will be thinking that they can implement it better than you and are unlikely to copy your stuff.

The hard part is acquiring customers, meeting their needs, addressing problems and retaining them by providing excellent service.

[1]: https://www.mondaq.com/india/trade-secrets/810286/is-softwar...

Thank you for the detailed response.

Your presumption is that it will be immediately obvious to engineers and product managers at larger and more established firms that your approach is superior to their current implementation and whatever was in the roadmap they have presented to senior management. As a result, they will immediately abandon their current approach and any promises to current customers and prospects and copy your implementation.

I don't think I have ever seen that happen but you could be the first.

I would encourage you to pick a niche to prosper in, one that is most likely to benefit from your approach, and start executing. Your "defense" are business relationships you can establish with customers in your target market--at least for the first few years.

Two books that specifically address your question with very different answers. Both books are completely worth your time reading.

1. The Innovation Stack: Building an Unbeatable Business One Crazy Idea at a Time by Jim McKelvey

This is a founder of Square talking about how he survived Amazon entering the market with a copycat product. He also uses examples from other companies that survived competition using similar techniques.

2. 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy by Hamilton Helmer

This book is a collection of 7 different types of “moats” that can exist. The authors claim (if I understood them correctly) that this list is exhaustive - there can only be these 7 types of moats to protect a business.

Make as much noise as possible about your product/service. Which goes against what people assume, which is to remain quiet and guarded about it until you're fully ready for a grand launch, but really most products don't launch like that anymore (unless inside of an already large company).

You have to make noise, attract users, and in turn establish yourself in the market. Without doing so, it's easy to rip from other projects, especially when they're willing to spend more time maintaining it post-launch than you.

Just actually have something to make noise about, not an idea of an idea, but something actually implemented even if partial.

I didn't mention this. I am implementing the idea btw (and not waiting for it) and will have a MVP to demo, irrespective of what I do with the protection angle. It was more around what to do when I do set customer demo's.

You want to build a moat but you have nothing yet worthy to protect (something bringing in money/traffic). You need to wait until you figured out how to succeed before protecting it.

When you launch you might feel like someone is going to steal your idea. What is going to happen is you will struggle for traffic and struggle to get the message out. You couldn't pay someone to copy you at this point. Once you figure out how to bring in money cater to those people's complaints and start building your moat there.

A patent is an expensive idea that could be a good idea later but you must be making enough to afford a long lawsuit

>>>you must be making enough to afford a long lawsuit

Valid point. It's possible that I am overestimating the value. I don't have enough data to claim otherwise at this point.

You can't "protect" yourself. The only protection you can build is by building a moat of some kind-- like building your business on data or some core knowledge only you know about, something that isn't easily replicated by anyone else.

That being said, there's a very high chance your product doesn't fall into the category above. You likely have no defense against the threats you perceive.

I would urge you to focus on building a better product faster than the big players. Do things they can't do (like good customer service, make it personable, things that can't scale, etc).

Nolo press publishes books on numerous areas of law including patent law, probably they have some at your public library. These are oriented towards people who would want to make the decision about filing a patent and file for the patent themselves.

A small business that applies for its first few patents can get a discount of 75% for their filing fees, I paid just $65 to file a provisional patent application and I think it wouldn't be much more than $1000 for a complete patent application if you did it yourself.

Your idea may or may not be patentable but you should read up on the subject and make up your mind if you want to try it.

Software patents shouldn't exist. Truly.

People are in general paying less attention to you than you might think. It's far far more likely that nobody cares than you have a rush or competition.

However it is possible that your idea is great and indeed will become a new state of the art. In such a case generally you've done recently well to get enough attention to be copied.

Execution, sales, marketing, persistence, resilience and perseverance are far harder to do and far more valuable than an idea.

So much more so that it's difficult to think of any companies where the idea was really key.

Maybe Dropbox. Although the execution challenge was huge.

One more perspective - AI right now is receiving more simultaneous startup attention than anything else ever. It's like a starting gun has been fired. So the chance that there's not just one but 20 people working on your idea is abnormally high.

I predict that YC batches the next couple of years will have not just duplicates but waves, and themes

In the scheme of things it's really unlikely anyone right now is having unique and valuable ideas in the AI space, I think there will be a tonne of simultaneous invention. What matters is being 4 weeks sooner and worrying about users not competition

Is it software, or more specifically a SaaS? In that case you might be out of luck, since most parts of the world don't recognize patents on software, apart from the US of course.

When your backend is server-side and doing something non-trivial, there is no copying without starting from scratch. Plus it's inner workings might be covered as trade secrets.

Generally, there is little to no value in ideas. Execution is what matters. Big players move slow, so that shouldn't be your biggest worry.

yes, it's SaaS. I must add it's not just big players. Other competitors (with lot of funding) could potentially "execute" what my platform does. yes, it is not trivial - but it is also not that hard for someone who knows AI space well.

Don't worry about it. Nobody (potential competitors) cares. They might look up once your product is successful, but then you already have a successful product.

> Are patents a good idea ?

No.

I have thousands of ideas I haven't built. And a few I have.

Ideas are both less valuable and less unique than they seem. It's statistically likely someone else has had or will have the idea (I don't know your idea so please don't take this personally).

Most people greatly overvalue their ideas and greatly underestimate execution.

>>Most people greatly overvalue their ideas and greatly underestimate execution.

Fair point.

It's impossible. Everyone will clone your idea. If profits == x1000 then everyones x100000 also. So, the fast growing with money and slowing clones is the key.

The question is if you can defend your patent. Larger player will sue you as long as you run out of money to defend yourself.

You can protect ideas and implementation by ideating and implementing better than your competitors.

If you have competitors, You are not original. So, there is nothing to protect.

And if your idea is novel but can be easily out-competed by other players then it is trivial.

There are competitors in the space - but no one building the way I am (that I know of atleast)

TLDR; patent hardware, not software.

I am fortunate to have been involved in the evolution of many founding software principles still heavily used to this day. As the creator and systems architect of several acquired SaaS platforms I have sat in more than one meeting discussing patenting my creations with executive management that saw nothing but fiat raining from the sky should such a patent be acquired for said software. Very early in my career I learned to avoid the software patent discussions as they did nothing but consume my time for something I recognized as frivolous in protecting.

As a generalist however with vast applied experience in electrical, mechanical, and technological hardware and software I do see value in patents which protect non software solutions, a physical tangible thing that accomplishes an objective in a unique derived way. With that stated, if one has a physical device which can be patented and therefore "protected" (to some degree) then patenting the physical thing as "unique" ensures one some legal protections as a timeline to execution, business evolution, and potential revenue. With this "unique physical device" patented it is of course controlled and managed by custom software. Protection by proxy for the custom software although not legally enforceable but since the device is "unique" this software has no other purpose. Modular design however through the entire hardware and software process ensures reusability at every turn; work smarter, not harder.

A lifetime of scars and lessons from these words so I hope this can help at least one person even if it's only a glancing blow answer to the OP question. My 2¢ from personal experiences which likely greatly differ from others so YMWV. Stay Healthy!

Thank you for taking time to respond. Appreciate it. Mine is all software however.

having done a lot of this, here's the best advice I have: consult an attorney that specializes in IP. There are a lot of ways to protect yourself, and an attorney can help find the mix that is best for your situation.

Lawyer up

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