Do you know how to prevent your ideas from being stolen? If you have an idea lying around that is easily accessible, you risk losing it. It’s vital that your company take action and create an intellectual property (IP) strategy in order to be successful. Getting the necessary protection for your ideas is the most important step you can take to help ensure its future. But what types of protection can you get for these ideas?
Trade Secret Agreements
Many companies require their employees to sign trade secret agreements. By signing these agreements, the employee is agreeing to maintain the secrecy of what is shared with them or be sued if it comes out that they stole or disclosed the secret upon leaving the company It may not be a perfect solution, as some employees may resist signing one, and they aren’t always enforceable if they were unreasonable in their intentions, i.e. they prohibit former employees from engaging in too many types of businesses or last longer than two years.
Copyrighting Ideas
A copyright is a great way to protect an idea. You may not have a fully formed product, but you may have an idea written down on a piece of paper. As the idea on paper is a creative work of expression, you can copyright that idea for protection. It could be an outline for a future novel, or even a blueprint for an invention.
Having that protection could prove vital should someone try to steal and develop it. If a former employee happens to have a copy of that idea and attempts to develop it themselves or for a rival company, you can easily sue for copyright infringement.
Physical or Digital Protection
Even if you do have protections on your valuable ideas, you still don’t want to leave them lying around your home or workspace. There is a chance that someone would still attempt to steal them if given the opportunity. And while you do have that protection should they try and capitalize on your work, litigation can still be a lengthy and painful process that is best avoided if possible. That’s why protecting an idea directly in a physical safe or through a digital vault is a smart choice.
Traklight’s ID your IP helps you identify all of your existing and potential intellectual property and creates a custom IP strategy to help you protect your ideas. ID your IP comes with a subscription to the IP Vault, our secure digital storage for all of your sensitive documents. The IP Vault can timestamp documents should you even need to provide proof in a legal proceeding.