How can I protect my intellectual property from being stolen after I’ve presented it to a potential client?

-- Norman Miglietta (nmiglietta@newtonpark.com), December 04, 2000

Answers

I've dug up some resources that may point you to the appropriate direction, which is, as always done best via lawyers. Personally, in the consulting profession some of what you give away comes with the territory. So the question is, how important is it to you to protect this? and that means how much are you prepared to fight legally over that protection? and how much of that fight economically makes sense to pursue?.

The obvious name that pops up in intellectual property debates is Jay Walker, who mumped in head first to bring business process into a patentable option. At a personal level I think that there are some terrible ramifications from using patent law in this fashion, but who am I to say how you should protect a multi-million dollar industry in this day and age. The Lott and Friedland link provides some most practical steps to take.

ARTICLES FOR YOUR REFERENCE

The Digital Dilemma - Intellectual Property in the Information Age : http://www.nap.edu/html/digital_dilemma/exec_summ.html

Articles from Lott & Friedland - Patent Attorneys : http://www.patentfla.com/publications.htm

Links from Brown, Pinnisi & Michaels, PC (Business Law firm in New York) : http://www.bpmlegal.com/iprefs.html

IP Regulations (International Overview) : http://www.unesco.org/webworld/observatory/doc_cont_regulation/ipr.sht ml

Intellectual Property Policy of the University of Georgia (Example of their Provisions) : http://www.ovpr.uga.edu/rpph/rph_chp2.html

M.

M Profile at: http://www.fastcompany.com/fasttalk/replypost.html? p=9738

Mantra of M. "Life is about Private Relations not Public Relations" "To be or not to be that is the question" A quote by Willy Shakes.

-- Mark Zorro (zorromark@consultant.com), December 04, 2000.

Norman, as I was tidying up my magazine archives today, I found this article in CIO that may also be of interest to you:

http://www.cio.com/archive/041500_poison.html

-- Mark Zorro (zorromark@consultant.com), December 05, 2000.

Have you ever considered creating a business partnership with your client to share in the rights of the intellectual property?

-- Steven Haleo (aecslh2@e-dr.net), March 17, 2001.