What is Protect Your Ideas?

If you say to a lawyer, "I’ve had a brilliant idea - how can I protect it?" the short answer will be, "You can’t protect a mere idea". In Intellectual Property law, that’s true. As advice, it’s not much help. It begs the question, "How do successful inventors, entrepreneurs and creative people protect their ideas and make money out of them?"

Protect Your Ideas is the first website to provide robust ways to help you protect a new idea at the early stage of development; ie the most risky stage. At a time when you're worried someone will steal your idea, Protect Your Ideas has secure, practical and easy-to-use solutions that will help.  It's also a lot less expensive than the lawyers who will advise about copyright or patent law.

Protect Your Ideas has been launched because there is no single, simple answer to the question “How can I protect my idea?”, but there are things that you can do once you've registered:

1. Encrypted Time-stamping: You can upload works with your ideas (eg a treatment for a film, design for an invention or a business plan). Each time you upload a work you’ll receive an encrypted, digital time-stamp certificate. You'll be able to edit your uploaded ideas and upload new versions at a private page that only you can access called My Protected Works. The point about registering the date of your work by time-stamping is that, if there’s a dispute later, you’ll have evidence of your work and the ideas in it at the time you uploaded it. And Protect Your Ideas will be a 3rd party witness to support you.

2. Collaboration: Most ideas involve collaboration; eg developing a creative project, raising money etc. All the works in the Open and Pro Members' Galleries have been time-stamped so it’s a secure environment in which to show your works to people. If you want to keep your ideas secret, you can use the "NDA Gallery". The NDA Gallery will save you legal fees – all you have to do is upload a work from My Protected Works to the NDA Gallery with details of the person you want to access it (the recipient). The recipient will receive a unique user code so he or she can access your work once they've accepted a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with you. Again, Protect Your Ideas is a witness to the NDA should there be a dispute about the confidential relationship later. You must register as a Pro Member to upload works to the NDA Gallery or other galleries at Protect Your Ideas.

3. Terms and Conditions: How often do you check online terms and conditions before you click "accept" to download software or upload your content to a website? The Terms Explained section that you can access if you register as a Pro Member gives you simple explanations of some of the things you’re being asked to agree when you upload videos, recordings, photos and other works to a website - so if you’re not sure about anything you can either decide not to proceed or take legal advice before continuing.

4. Experience: An important part of developing an idea is experience. If you’ve had an idea that’s not in your sphere of knowledge, you’ll find the experience of others invaluable. The videos in the Editor’s Gallery feature interviews with people who have had ideas, pursued them and who are prepared to talk about what they did…and the things they might have done differently with hindsight.

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How to use Protect Your Ideas

It's easy to register and if you’re not sure whether to sign up as a Pro Member or ordinary Member, here are the benefits:

Pro Member:
If you want to use all the features at Protect Your Ideas you should register as a Pro Member. Pro Membership costs £40 per year which includes 5 uploads. Each additional upload is £8. And for a limited period there is FREE UNLIMITED use of the NDA Gallery for Pro Members. As a Pro Member you can use the following: 

Encrypted time-stamping:  Pro Members can upload ideas, files, data, designs and all kinds of works in any format (up to a file size of 25mb) and receive an encrypted email in the form of a digital time-stamp certificate to confirm the date of upload and that you uploaded it. If there’s a dispute in the future, you’ll have secure evidence of the upload and Protect Your Ideas as a witness to support you. You can re-upload new iterations of the work to keep a log of its evolution and Pro Members can buy discounted bundles of uploads.

Galleries: There are 3 galleries Pro Members can use to collaborate on their ideas:

1. Open Gallery - where all visitors can view your works. 
2. Pro Members' Gallery - where like-minded Pro Members can access your works and message you if they want to collaborate with you. 
3. NDA Gallery - where you can upload your work and allow someone to see it confidentially after they've accepted the terms of a non-disclosure agreement with you.

FAQ

Why Register with Protect Your Ideas?

Here are some important reasons:

• Why is time-stamping important? Because the timeline can be vital if there’s a dispute about who came up with an idea first. You’ll have evidence to prove the date you had your idea and Protect Your Ideas as a witness to support you.
• Why not post my work to myself and keep it unopened in the envelope? Because the post may lose it, you may lose it, there won’t always be a postmark on the envelope, there won’t be a witness to support your claim and it’s not as secure as digital registration. Also, you may want to time-stamp different iterations of your idea which is easy on Protect Your Ideas. 
• Why should I use Protect Your Ideas galleries to show my ideas to other people? Because it’s an environment where the ideas in displayed works are valued by the creators and all the works have been time-stamped to avoid future disputes. 
• Why is there a gallery for Pro Members only? Because Pro Members may want to limit the access to their work to other like-minded individuals with whom they can collaborate without publishing the work to all visitors to Protect Your Ideas. 
• Why should I use the NDA Gallery? Because there may be information, data or content that you want to keep secret in your idea. Make sure you upload your work with “No Access” when you select Access Permissions in the upload process. 
• Why use the NDA Gallery rather than go to a lawyer for a non-disclosure agreement? Because lawyers are expensive and using the NDA Gallery is FREE for a limited period for Pro Members.
• Why can’t Members show their works in the galleries and use the NDA Gallery? Because Members are people who may have had a brilliant idea that they want to time-stamp, but which they aren’t ready to develop. It may be a short term measure and Members can easily upgrade to Pro Membership later.
• Why should I bother trying to understand what online terms and conditions say? Because when it comes to dealing with your content, data or ideas online, you should care about the standard terms and conditions you’re being asked to accept by websites. If you want to make money out of your ideas you will need to do deals, and a good starting point is to go to Terms Explained and see what you’re agreeing to when you upload your works to Facebook, YouTube and other websites.
• Why don’t I apply for a patent if my idea is an invention? You should certainly apply for a patent if your idea is an invention, but it may need work before you make the application; eg do you need help with the design, technical or other elements? If so, make sure you keep your idea confidential, upload it at each stage of development selecting the “No Access” permission to time-stamp it, and use the NDA Gallery to disclose it to other people. Applying for a patent can be expensive and Protect Your Ideas can help while you refine your invention before you embark on the patent application process. 
• Why doesn’t copyright law protect ideas? Because copyright law protects the expression of an idea in a fixed form – it protects the skill and work in expressing an idea. So, a bit far-fetched, but this may help - imagine you met Leonardo Da Vinci! He tells you he’s had an idea to paint a lady called Lisa who has an unusually enigmatic smile. No law will protect his idea, but once he’s used his artistic skill to create the Mona Lisa, copyright protects the expression of his idea in the painting. 
• Why should I use Protect Your Ideas if my idea is for a new business? Developing a new business usually involves risks. Confidentiality may be particularly important - you’ll probably need to collaborate with different people: potential partners, financiers, suppliers etc. The NDA Gallery can be an invaluable way to show people the business plan, product designs, marketing concepts and other information about the business confidentially and Protect Your Ideas is a witness to each NDA.

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Who Should Use Protect Your Ideas?

It's this simple - whoever you are and whatever you do, if you genuinely believe your ideas have value and you’re determined to make them successful, Protect Your Ideas is designed to help you.

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