I'm building a new business. I'm afraid to be copied. Should I patent it?

1 points by DYZT 9 years ago | 2 comments

I've built a new product. I showed it to a couple of target groups (who are part of my target audience). All the people's response was: I like it and would be willing to pay money for it.

I tried contacting a company offering a related service, offering them a cooperation. I suggested a simplified version of what I showcased my focus group. The company said "thank you for the suggestion, we'll implement it ourselves".

After receiving this response I thought of patenting my idea. I contacted a patent's lawyer who said that since I already launched a basic version it means that there's no novelty behind the idea any more. He said that I should remove the website and wait with gaining users until I receive the patent. This seems very counter to the common practise of startup companies these days.

What would you suggest?

gradschool 9 years ago |

IANAL, but isn't it too late to patent an idea after you've disclosed it? If your lawyer said something like that already, then why is he still talking about patenting it? Also, if the idea is simple enough to explain to a competitor in a phone call well enough for them to implement it, then maybe it's too obvious to be patentable. Maybe someone can correct me if I'm wrong about this, but I thought patents were very expensive to acquire and even more expensive to defend, making them suitable only for big players who use them mainly to forge anti-competitive non-aggression pacts among themselves while keeping everyone else out of the market (as in the mobile phone space, for example). Your role as a small startup is to be smarter and more agile than they are (if you can) rather than trying to beat them at their own game.

smt88 9 years ago |

> "thank you for the suggestion, we'll implement it ourselves"

No matter what you do, this will happen. It's too early to worry about competition. Focus on getting your customers and building your business. If you provide better value, that other company won't matter.