But I Don't Have Any Great Ideas Worth Protecting — Or Do I?

In this chapter you will discover that pretty much every living person, and some dead ones, have protectable ideas! People in business, inventors, software developers — all of these people have ideas, some of them great! Don't be surprised if you see yourself in most, if not all, of the types of idea generators discussed in this chapter.

Everyone Has Ideas ... Period!

Are you in business? Have you ever made something to solve a problem because you couldn't find it at WAL-MART? Have you ever written a poem or drawn a picture? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you have ideas. Your ideas are the gold from your mind, your "intellectual property." Unless you are a total slug and have never done anything in your entire life, you have intellectual property. Everyone does! And chances are, some (perhaps a great deal) of your intellectual property is well worth protecting — even if you don't realize it yet (and many don't until it's too late). It's a shame that more people don't realize how easy and inexpensive it is to protect their great ideas. What you will learn in this book is what kind of intellectual property your great idea represents and the steps you can take to protect your great idea for free!

Why Should You Protect Your Ideas Anyway?

What is the point in protecting your great idea? The simple answer is that your ideas are what make you money and/or keep you in business! The more you protect your ideas, the longer you can stay in business; and the longer you stay in business, the more valuable your ideas become! I have heard it said that we are now in the "information age," and in this "high-tech," Internet-connected age what is important are ideas! It's no longer "bricks and mortar" buildings that are important but rather the new ideas a business has, and must have, to stay in business in today's twenty-first-century global market! Well, excuse me if I pour a little water on that campfire. In my opinion, no matter what the century, it has always been the person or business with the new idea that has set the pace! How would you like to have cornered the market on that "wheel" invention way back when? Anyway, then and now, ideas rule. Because that is true, a prudent plan for people with ideas includes taking steps to protect a new idea as soon as possible. How sad would it be if you lost your great idea because you didn't know how to protect it from day one? Trust me: it is a sad thing to see. I have had to give many clients over the years the bad news about how they had lost their idea to the public because of the things they did before they came to me. The even sadder part is that they could have protected their idea for free, if they had only known how.

I was going to war. Really. I was the engineering officer on the USS Gallup (Figure 1.1), and as we steamed out of port in Guam on the first leg of the long trip to Vietnam, I had the "conn." In navy talk, this means I was the officer in charge of where the ship went. The captain had gone below, and I was in charge of the lead ship in a group of three. The Gallup set the course and the others followed. It was my first trip to Vietnam on a gunboat and we had a long way to go, but already I was nervous. I am going to WAR is what kept going around in my mind. Anyway, all of a sudden I was pitched forward against the window glass as the Gallup came to a screeching stop — or at least as close to a screeching stop as you can get with a ship. Being the new guy, my first thought was "Uh oh! What did I touch?" I looked around the bridge. No one said anything, and no one had a clue what had happened. In the meantime, the other two ships sailed on by, leaving us wallowing in their combined wake, their crews waving happily in response to our misfortune, whatever it was. Well, the captain called the bridge and asked in a very rude manner what was going on. I said I didn't know. That didn't help things much, and he suggested quite rudely that I, as engineering officer, inquire about why "his" ship had stopped moving. So I called the engine room and asked rudely (think stuff flowing downhill) why we had stopped. There was a short pause, and then they said, "Doc caught a fish!" Doc was Frank Martin Ivey (Dr. Ivey — What a great name for a doctor!), the squadron medical officer and an avid fisherman. While I was fretting about going to war, he had set up his lawn chair on the fantail and gone fishing! He caught a dolphin (the fish kind), and then yelled down the hatch to the engine room, "Stop the boat! I caught a fish!" and they did! When I told him what had happened, the captain said, "Oh, well, when he gets it in, catch up to the other guys." And I thought, now that's power! That's leverage! No one in the Navy ever messed with the medical officers; likewise, no one will mess with your great idea once you have done what I advise! You will have "legal leverage" after you have protected your great idea for free. Let's start by looking at where these ideas come from.

The Overlooked Protectable Ideas in Every Business

The president of a Pensacola business group asked me what I did, and I told him I was in the protection business. "What kind of protection do you provide for businesses?" he asked. I said, "I help businesses identify and protect their intellectual property — you know, patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets." "Oh," he said. "We don't have any of that here."

The fact is, if you are in business — even in sunny, scenic Pensacola, Florida (the paradise of the universe, as far as I am concerned!) — you do have intellectual property, even if you think you don't. For example, if you sell anything — goods or services — you call the things or the services you sell something, don't you? Well, the words, symbols, and slogans you use to identify and distinguish your things from all the other similar things being sold are your trademarks. And, surprise, your great ideas for your trademarks are valuable intellectual property! Figure 1.2 shows one familiar example of a trademark, the APPLE Computer logo.

Or have you ever had a great idea for an ad and created an original ad for the thing you are selling? Well, guess what. Original works of...