How do I protect an idea from theft?

Jeff:

When you describe an idea that will help NASA or mankind it is likely it is not copyrighted material. It is more likely that what you want to to is to protect your inventive idea... Your idea will solve a problem and is more likely it is patentable material. You can share this inventive idea and have it transferable to one or many folks.

Good you are open to being on the development team. Means you are willing to learn! The info I will give you will allow you to not look like an idiot when you approach whoever you want to work with. I STRONGLY suggest that you NOT give ANYONE money to "do something" for you until you know EXACTLY what that "something" is...

Do you know about the Provisional Patent Application? It only costs $125 and was designed by Congress to give individual inventors a chance at bringing their inventive ideas to market easily. It is SUPER EASY to do..

To see the top 10 reasons to file a Provisional Patent Application please watch the second video in this blog.

http://www.filepatentapplications.com/blog/

If a provisional patent application looks like the right thing for you to do then take a look at another website that shows EXACTLY how to file one using a video format.

http://provisionalpatentvideo.com/

If you need to know how to get your product sold on TV or to Costco, or Home Depot, or Target and the like then you might also enjoy reading this information by the Ginsu Knife guy! It is pretty cool. He gives you all his contacts and personal email!

http://bit.ly/GinsuKnifeGuy1

Of course you could ALSO just go to the US Patent Office and figure out how to file a patent yourself. Here is the link..

http://www.uspto.gov/patents/process/index.jsp

The flow chart there is pretty nice to give you an idea how to do what you want to do!

Their patent search is hard to use and you need special programs to look at the patents… Instead, consider using Google Patent Search!

Here is how you can use Google Patent Search to search for an "Oscillating inertial microbalance"

http://www.google.com/patents?id=M5GRAAAAEBAJ&pg=P...

Just type the term you want to search for in the search box. Play with MANY variants of your inventive idea.

Also, for a more global patent search look here:

http://worldwide.espacenet.com/advancedSearch?loca...

Remember... Patents are MOSTLY "Improvements" on other inventions.. So, while you may see something SIMILAR to your inventive idea it does not mean that you cannot patent your IMPROVEMENT.. Example... A tire is an IMPROVEMENT on a wagon wheel. A radial biased ply tire is an IMPROVEMENT on a non radial biased tire. There are over 10,000 patents on tires... Nearly every single one is an improvement!

And… a special gift for you is a sample Non Disclosure (also called an NDA) that you would have folks sign when you show them your inventive idea. You can change it up and use others but if you have NOTHING now it is a very good start written by my lawyer who charged me a TON for it!

http://www.4lowprice.info/images/NDA_GeneralMutual...

Call me or private message me if you have further questions.. But first.. study the info above...

If you like my answer can you vote on it?

Thanks,

Dave

The thing with patents is that they're easy to get, but harder to enforce as an individual. There was a person who got a patent for a computer operating system which featured pictures, text and sound, but he didn't get rich because he couldn't get a good lawyer to protect his idea. Also my grandfather has taken out several patents, but has never made money from his ideas because he didn't know how to produce and sell it as a product. If you know a patent lawyer then they will be able to give you better advice than yahoo answers.

I had a good idea for NASA too! Getting a president who cares more about science than war, but no one listens to me.

I dunno if this makes sense to me but the world doesn't make sense.. NASA does science stuff right? Science is all predetermined and humans only learn about it, and learn to manipulate it.. I guess i'd need to know the full story, but are you saying you know a piece of science, that could contribute to a greater piece of science and are withholding it because science can wait until you get money? Okay.. this totally makes sense to me now.. It sucks that the world is run by money but it is :\ I heard about a somewhat unofficial way to protecting an idea, but in court if there's a fight i think its admissible.. You write the idea down. mail it to yourself, and don't open it. Have the date on the piece of paper, and your idea is protected in a sealed envelope :D lol though I think you'd really need a lawyer who does copyright things, its better if you know nothing about what they do because thats the way they like it.

Good luck on your science, and one day maybe science people pay for will end up destroying money all together ;)

By your description it sounds like you are talking about a "method to do something" so if that's the case what you need is a patent, not a copyright.

Besides you can't copyright an IDEA. You would need to put that idea into a tangible form.

You cannot protect an idea. Others who have the same idea can exploit it. Even those who get the idea from you can exploit it. If you design the game with sufficient specificity, you can protect that, but the idea alone is fair game.

You should probably contact a lawyer to get some educated advice, but my best guess would to be patent that, and then attempt to sell it.