Intellectual property – Don’t let someone else get rich on your ideas

“Intellectual property has the shelf life of a banana!”- Bill Gates

Do you remember the episode in Seinfeld where Kramer goes to Calvin Klein and presents an idea about a perfume with a scent of the beach? After a while the company launches a perfume identical in scent with the one Kramer presented, called Ocean. Even if at the moment of the discussion they were not interested. Kramer didn’t register the idea; they didn’t call him back when starting to produce. He gets something out of it in the end, but he could have got a small fortune if only he would have registered it.

            In the real life, things like this happen often enough. Many times ideas pitched are dismissed only to be implemented with someone else. On the other hand, there is a fine line here. If you change a word in a sentence, a color in a drawing it can be registered as something else. Let’s look at a cocktail, if you register the recipe and someone else uses a different type of whiskey it is a different cocktail, so you spent money and time just to register a useless name.

            Thinking about mister Gates’ statement you have to keep in mind the fact that, indeed, your innovation is not going to last forever. Every day things change, so just having a good idea and registering it is not all. You still have to work, but first step should be protecting your ideas.

            You have to follow some steps in order to be safe. Laws and regulations are blurry sometimes so you have to be thorough.

1. If you are not sure, ask someone who knows. At first sight registering your idea or patent looks easy. But as all simple things, the devil lives in the details. Why risk your future fortune only because you think paying someone is a luxury you cannot afford. The cost of redrafting applications is always bigger than the initial fee.
2. Do your homework. There are different types of Intellectual Property and most of the time you don’t need all of it. We have patents protecting inventions, trademarks protecting brands and copyright protecting ideas. Usually a normal company will only require trademarks so know what you need act accordingly.
3. Get non disclosure clauses. Get your partners and employees to sign non disclosure clauses. These prevents, in theory, that anyone involved with your company will discuss about sensitive information from within.
4. Don’t be Kramer. When you have a great idea and you have good feedback after testing it, keep it a secret until you register it. Enthusiasm might get you to tell everyone how great you are, but they can implement it too. You either make it so that it is dependent on your skills or just keep silent until you are sure it is impossible to lose.
5. Patience and trust. It is a long process so you have to be patient, getting all approvals and documents could take a while. Trust in your idea and go all the way. And while waiting for your patent or trademark work on improving your idea.

Romanian laws, as all regulations in a young economy, might not be the best. Still you can apply for intellectual protection, also international. Lawyers are not that much interested in this domain but you can find people to help you. We do have history of intellectual property in Romania. We always had great inventors. First patent law was in January 17^th 1906. Since then Romania joined all international organizations in the field of international property, it’s just that we still have a mentality problem.

We don’t have a unitary law covering all aspects. We have law nr 84 from 1998 regarding trademarks and geographical indications, 129 from 1991 protecting industrial drawings and models, 8 from 1996 covering copyright and complementary rights and 11 from 1991 regarding unfair competition. And there are some more in this field, this is why we must pay extra attention and look for professional help to guide us.

Consider carefully protecting your ideas. Choose your battles right. You might have the next Xerox or Coca Cola or you could just think your idea is great because you are subjective. Protect what others are interested too, not just what you think is worth it.