For my own benefit, I would write down in my own words what I considered to be the "IP" or ideas of the project / start-up - and then compare the 1-sentence ideas.
Whatever the eventual situation, you will have to know in your own mind what the distinctions and overlaps are. If there are sticking points in the future, you might have thought about them via this process, and that might make your future ventures less fraught. _____ Ian Thomas Victoria Park, Western Australia _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Matt Siebert Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2011 7:55 AM To: ozDotNet Subject: Ideas and IP Hi all, I'm not looking for anything legally binding, but just wondering what is generally the case with regards to ideas and IP - are ideas considered IP? or does there need to be some specific detail in order to be protected by IP law? For the last 18 months I've been working on a startup with a friend and an investor. My friend has been an employee in the investor's company from the start (and years before). Initially I was contracting my spare time to the investor's company to do the proof of concept and later I commenced employment with the investor's company in order to work on the new product. There have been ups and downs and ultimately the startup has suffered many losses due to decisions made by the investor against our advice. Right now the sh*t is beginning to hit the fan and my friend and I have had enough and are considering leaving and starting our own business in our spare time. We have no intention to do anything legally or morally wrong. We won't be working on the same product we've been working on under the investor's company, but my friend had some ideas for future products that we would like to use. These are just ideas with a 1 sentence description and no real details. As such we're unsure where these fall with respect to IP laws. In the end, we're looking for ways forward that benefit all parties, but are quite prepared to just walk away if such a solution cannot be achieved. Any advice would be greatly appreciated and I understand it's not legally binding or anything. Cheers.
