How Do I Secure An IP, While Leaving Options Open? 281
Tiger4 writes "Let's say I have a photograph, or a television script, or have finally perfected the water-to-gasoline conversion process, or some other piece of non-software but copywritable or patentable IP. I know I want it secured in my name, on this date, in a provable and verifiable way. But being an Open Source, free-to-the world sort of person, I'm willing to share my knowledge to the world, as long as all credit points unambiguously to me. Any attempts at theft could, would, and must be immediately rebuffed by my offer of proof from when I first secured the IP. What, if any, tool or method is available to me in the digital world? MD5 and the like are available to show that copied files are the same as the original source, but they don't show time of authorship unambiguously. The same with Public Key crypto. I could lock it up with a time stamp, but what prevents me from faking the stamp that locks the file? Is there a way to homestead a little chunk of time with my IP's name on it?"
Use a digital timestamping service (Score:4, Informative)
I found this in 30 seconds through Google, did you even look before submitting your question to Slashdot?
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Submit it to usenet.
Seriously, you can't "secure" IP and still make it known to the general public. Ask Coca-cola. They protected their recipe by simply not releasing it. If they had, any protection would have expired long ago.
There is no innate "right" to IP - you only have what the local laws + your enforcement of same can provide. Even then, you can't stop all uses. Fair use comes into play on copyrights; obviousness, prior art, lack of true invention come into play on patents. On top of that, paten
Use the GPL as well (Score:3, Interesting)
Those technical solutions are all very well, and I wish governments would get with the times and offer official digital timestamping services of their own, or bless some of the existing ones. Unfortunately, there's at least one good technical excuse why they need not rush to embrace these new ways. We don't have a proof that P!=NP, and a great deal of crypto (and other things) depends upon the assumption that P!=NP. Would be a bummer to set everything up, get systems, procedures, offices, legal tradition
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What planet was I on again?
Re:Use a digital timestamping service (Score:5, Informative)
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Chain it to a lawyer. (Score:2, Funny)
Copyright Office. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Copyright Office. (Score:4, Informative)
Which is probably why you don't realise that most other countries don't have a copyright registration system.
Re:Copyright Office. (Score:4, Informative)
This is one of those few government services I believe to be legitimate.
-Peter
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Notarys... (Score:5, Informative)
You give them a piece of paper, they sign it and keep a copy. If you ever have to go to court they appear as a witness with their copy of the paper.
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In addition, you can request a copy be placed in the records/archives at the courthouse.
When I was discharged from the Marine Corps, I took my DD-214 paperwork to my county courthouse, requested a couple of certified copies and that a copy be held in the archive. It cost a few dollars, (about $15 if I remember right), but a few days later I got my original copy, my certified copies, and a notice that a copy had been archived. I'm not sure if they will do it for non-government paperwork, but it wouldn't h
Re:Notaries... (Score:5, Informative)
I think this is a state by state thing. I was a notary in Vermont for a few years and I did not keep a copy of what I notarized. I did log the signings that I did, for my own benefit, but there was nothing in the laws governing notaries saying I would have to do so. Basically, the laws in Vermont said that if you notarize something without using proper diligence to make sure that the person signing the document is actually who they say they are, you'd be liable. So it was in the notary's best interest to only accept official identification and try and spot counterfeit ID. However, unless there was a problem, nobody came around to check these things. I just had to swear to the state that I wouldn't knowingly notarize false documents.
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1) Perform signature acknowledgements (verify a document is signed by the person it says it was by requiring the personal appearance of such person with proper ID. A common example of this is real estate mortgages as you alluded.
2) Administer oaths for sworn statements (jurat/affidavit). A common ex
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The other advantage of registration is that you can sue for "statutory damages" and legal costs. These can be considerably greater than the damage awards available for infringed unregistered works. See 17 USC 412 [cornell.edu] and the discussion of statutory damages in 17 USC 504 [cornell.edu] and 17
Use your lawyer (Score:3, Informative)
When you;re fighting copyers, you can have this opened in the presence of a lawayer or court, have everything verified and checked and then have it re-sealed in the same venue and have all proceedings officially recorded.
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If you want to protect the functional aspects of your idea (i.e. things within the realm of patents) rather than just the way you expressed it in code (copyright only protects the form of expression, not the how-it-works aspects), then look up "Statutory Invention Registrations" with the US Patent and Trademark Office. They're relatively inexpensive and will act as pr
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Yeah, because in the event of a legal dispute, having your lawyer vouch for you is going to carry a lot of weight.
(Not to mention that the lawyer you've retained as a "document validator", as they will be a key witness in the case, probably won't be able to represent you in the event of dispute, requiring you to hire a second lawye
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You could just get a registered copyright for significantly less than the combined fees of the attorney and notary here, which would also provid
Post your ideas on Slashdot! (Score:5, Funny)
Awesome (Score:2)
I think a news collector/ comment allowing website in the slashdot model should assign moderation points but let the user choose when to activate them, subject to predefined rules that would prevent the usage of so many points over a given time span or used in a single article.
Remember you heard it from me first as the time stamp shows. Tune in next week for the secret to free energy, and world peace. That is all.
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I always liked the public public press release and demo.
As an example, is anybody going to challenge the date of the private rocket launch by them claiming first private launch into space instead? The demo was very public and well documented in many forms.
For the naysayers regarding the first man on the moon, the proof is either there or it isn't. In the future when man again returns, the new claim of first man on the moon will h
Post (Score:2)
Might have been an old wives tale though.
Although realistically if it is a major find you should be grabbing a solicitor and filing your idea in whatever manner is appropriate.
This is not legal advice and
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I asked my lawyer once, he told me it was stupid and accomplished nothing.
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Re:Post... Put stamps across seal (Score:2)
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Perfect fraud is becoming more difficult every year.
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that is exactly why the USPS will mail an unopened envelope to yourself. You do know that the post office is a government organization right?
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This is not legal advice and IANAL.
Clearly not. This is known as "poor man's copyright", and is generally considered to be useless (due to the fact that it's trivially easy to game the system to claim
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Every time I remember sending a registered mail, the post office stamped ink across the seams of the envelope - presumably to ensure that it wasn't opened.
But seriously, Slashdot is the worst place to get good legal advice. Yikes.
That said, there was a good article on the August 11th Talk of the Nation Science Friday called "What Inventors Need to Know". One of the guests emphasis
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Well, it's okay to ask Slashdot.... (Score:2)
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Depending on where (Score:2)
Patent it (Score:5, Informative)
The downside is that getting a patent can be a bit expensive.
Ask a Lawyer (Score:2)
Particularly considering you haven't stated which country you're in.
If the IP you want to protect is worth any serious quantity of money, then an hour or so of a lawyers time is a worthwhile investment.
Alternatively, if you're a cheapskate, I understand the traditional method was for authors to post themselves a copy but not open it. That way, if a dispute ever arose, there was a sea
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Read the various posts above about all the fun ways to fraud the system of sending yourself a sealed envelope.
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The UK Intellectual Property Office implies here [ipo.gov.uk] that although posting something to yourself (by Special Delivery) and not opening it upon receipt doesn't prove you created it, it does give you proof you held that information on that date.
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How about a Sharpie? (Score:2)
Unless you embed your name in the material in some way it can't be removed (impossible if it's just an idea), you're out of luck. One way to do this would be from a branding/marketing perspective - think Coke, Kleenex, Xerox, etc. - if you can get the thing
Publsh it (Score:4, Informative)
Then, if it's really worth it ... (Score:2)
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A side effect is that your article would be prior art against any other later inventor who tries to patent the same idea. Of course, you have to try to get published in a popular journal that the Patent Office would think an average inventor would look at. (Not Slashdot.)
Obscure scientific journals (Score:2)
HOWEVER... you can make TWO versions: One as in a technical report, but with less scientific level. You post that on a public site. Then make a journal-ready version and submit it to the sci journals.
Online timestamper (Score:2)
Call a notary (Score:4, Informative)
If you don't have a personal lawyer and don't want to mess with the copyright office, you may also have a notary public [wikipedia.org] sign and date a printout of the document. Be sure that the law in your state allows notaries to act in that capacity; I don't think they can i New York, for example.
Advantages: cost and convenience - you might very well know one or have one on staff at your office.
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Do NOT do this with the office notary. You may introduce some ownership/conflict of interest issues.
Wrong solution for the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
The digital world is the wrong place to search for a solution. The simplest, most effective (though not, particularly in the case of patents, the cheapest) solution is to simply secure the appropriate legal registration of the IP (a registered copyright, a patent, etc.) and then offer the product under a no-cost license that requires credit and whatever other terms you want to impose.
(Since copyright is automatic, you can technically avoid registration and still be protected, but registration serves the documentation role you are looking for without any technical trickery, and copyright registration isn't particularly expensive.)
Just mail (Score:2)
Re:Just mail (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.snopes.com/legal/postmark.asp [snopes.com]
This solution is way too easy to fraud. As a simple example:
Have notary notarize several basically blank pages (fill in only as much as you need to convince a notary to mark it).
Mail an unsealed envelope to yourself.
Fill in your 'discovery' 'borrowed' from someone else on the notarized pages years later.
Stick in envelope, seal, sign over seal.
Done!
From a California Notary Standpoint: (Score:3, Informative)
Simply put, a Notary Public in the United States verifies Identity, not ownership of IP and as such can not usually and damn well better think twice about it; notarize anything that is not a written document with a signature on it. Things like Contracts, Afidavits, Acknowledgements and so on that indicate some type of written response with a signature is required.
ATT did it this way... (Score:2)
Why Not Just Publish? (Score:2)
Of course, if you want to turn a buck on the idea later on you should patent or copyright it and be a bastard. You can't have your cake and eat it, too.
I've been thinking for a while... (Score:2)
Because the system is run by a third party with no interest in the ongoing litigation, it would likely be trusted by a court.
There's also a nontrivial chance it would earn the person who set it up some reasonable expert witness fees.
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Just post the document itself to Usenet.
publishing the MD5 in the wall street journal tho- (Score:2)
kinda hard to reverse do from a has to the file then...
There's already a system in place (Score:3, Insightful)
Patents are considerably more complicated, of course, and more expensive, but again, the only thing the court will care about is the patent.
Does anybody have a patent on reinventing the wheel yet?
Two easy ways to date a document (Score:2)
2. Post it to Usenet.
There are other more official options as well, but both of these should be sufficient to associate a date with something.
Um, certified mail or lockbox? (Score:2)
Where are you right now? (Score:3, Funny)
Various digital timestamp services including USPS. (Score:2)
There are a variety of digital timestamps available. Ideally you should use multiples from different sources, so it doesn't matter if some become discredited. In this article [digistamp.com], a company compares itself to the service provided by the US Postal Service.
The mentioned services would have to be provided on a retail basis rather than commercial, as these seem to be described, but I have no reason to believe they are not.
If you choose a sufficiently-strong message digest, they do not have to sign the whole digit
Patent it yourself, or forget the whole thing (Score:2)
IP sucks. Its never as simple as you think.
If you don't want to personally profit - but you just want to make sure that no-one else can control it - then you could release it/publish it, using any or all of the suggestions given by well-meaning but legally ignorant slashdotters above (or better still ask a lawyer).
However seriously, if its a great idea, then there's a high chance someone else will want in - perhaps claiming you stole it from them for example. Yes there are people out there like this. Do
Re:Patent it yourself, or forget the whole thing (Score:5, Interesting)
IP sucks because it doesn't exist.
Look, you either have an object, which is patentable, a work, which can be copyrighted, a symbol, which can be trademarked... or you have an idea, which is only protected until you tell somebody else. If you don't want to share, don't.
The concept of Intellectual Property - i.e. the idea that an abstract construct can have the same properties as a physical construct - is self-contradictory: If it's intellectual, it's not property. The idea has no basis in law, philosophy or history. I've written about this elsewhere [livejournal.com], so I won't waste my breath repeating myself here.
As far as the submitter is concerned, the alternatives are clear: You can protect the work, but not the idea. If it's a song, write it down and/or record it, then copyright it. If it's software, put it in a public repository that has reliable tracking and timestamping, and associate it with an appropriate license. As the owner, you can change this license any way you like in the future, so pick something that suits you for the time being and leave it at that.
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Look, you either have an object, which is patentable, a work, which can be copyrighted, a symbol, which can be trademarked... or you have an idea, which is only protected until you tell somebody else. If you don't want to share, don't.
I'm afraid that objects are not patentable, it is the design of the object or process the object implements that is patentable (an invention). The point behind a patent is not to keep something to yourself, it's to license the process/design/
Provisional patent application (Score:2)
If you want it published with that date, you'll need to file an actual utility application ($1000, same small entity options). In 18 months or so, it'll be published, with the filing date clearly indicated. No one says you have to prosecute the application after filing it.
Just ... (Score:5, Funny)
How come I don't have any "Please! Stop!" mod points?
Securing ip (Score:2, Insightful)
Digital Time Stamps for repeated witnessing (Score:2)
Essentially you generate a checksum and they digitally sign the checksum + the time. So it's crypto proof that at that time T you had a document with checksum C. (You're tied to the document by your account.)
You can, for example, timestamp a PDF file. It integrates with Acrobat pretty well.
I think this is th
How Do I Secure An IP, While Leaving Options Open? (Score:3, Funny)
Can't believe this hasn't been mentioned... (Score:2)
DON'T mail it to yourself - and a better alternate (Score:3, Informative)
As others have pointed out, this is a useless tactic. Yes, when you mail something to yourself, it gets date stamped. Great, wonderful. But there's no onus on the post office to ensure that you have properly sealed the envelope in anyway. You could leave it completely open and empty, and they'll mail it to you. Later on, at any time, you can put something into the envelope and seal it.
But what if the post office insists on datestamping over the enclosure of the envelope? Then it MUST be sealed. Sure-- or at least that end of the envelope does. Some envelopes can have two openings, because of the way they're folded. Have them timestamp over the second end. Or unseal the second end and reseal it later.
Or steam open the envelope, and very carefully reseal it afterwards so that the timestamp matches up.
Or use a plain white envelope, and a pair of chopsticks. Roll your document around the sticks, then stick the sticks into the envelope through the bottom where it isn't QUITE sealed along the fold.
There are so many ways to tamper with it. And you forget there's also the question of chain of possession. Who has actually had the envelope from the time it was stamped until the time you present it to the courts?
And what about a biased source? You're suing someone because you claim you own what they're say they own. Your proof? "Because I said so."
The main issue here isn't proving that you own something. It's that you own it, and that you came up with it, and that you came up with it first. As others have mentioned, use the patent office. Use a notary. They're all trusted third parties who can verify the when of it.
And to prove that you actually came up with it-- simple. Show your work. Keep every rough draft, concept sketch, hand-drawn Rose diagram, cvs revision and so forth. If someone does steal the final product, it becomes a huge advantage to you. The other guy says "This is my idea". You say "This is my idea, and here's fifteen boxes of evidence that demonstrate the process I went through to create it." Who do you think the judge is going to believe?
broad publication (Score:2)
Depends on what it is - do NOT mail it to yourself (Score:2)
First of all, you seem to be operating under the idea that IP laws are restrictive of what you can do with your own IP. This actually isn't the case. Under copyright law, you can do whatever you want with your own IP. Protecting it, or more specifically, the terms under which you want to share it, on the other hand, is
Stop and walk away (Score:2, Informative)
Second, if you're still reading this, there is no such thing as "IP" in the law. There are copyright, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, and possibly a few other things. They are not the same, and disclosure has radically different effects on them. The laws vary from country to country.
Third, it sounds like you're talki
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Was it your intention to underline the truth of your first point with your second? There is, indeed, a thing called "IP" or "Intellectual Property" in the la
Registered Post (Score:2)
There's no such thing as IP (Score:2)
Copyright and patents extend a monopoly of limited duration on creative works to the creator or their employer, depending on contracts or law. If it can be considered 'property', then it is the property of all. If you don't like the idea that ultimately your creative work doesn't belong to you, then work to get copyright abolished and replaced with some sort of actual intellectual property right. This idea that copyright makes something 'intellectual property' is ass backwards and only serves the interes
Do some research (Score:2)
-b
File it with the copyright office (Score:2)
Put adwith encrypted 'puzzle' in major newspaper (Score:2)
Best idea I've come up with is to put an add that appears to be a 'word search' puzzle in a major newspaper like the new york times, but its actually a simple encryption to some major text like the declaration of independence. Don't tell anyone what it really is.
Now, its published wide and far, but nobody knows about it!
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Find me a court case referring to such a thing, or an actual law, and I'll believe you. Otherwise, it's just a waste of a stamp.
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Confer:
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Hint: The answer is almost certainly not "a lawyer". I am quite confident it is not "a competent lawyer".
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Just register with the copyright office. Fairly cheap, fairly easy, fairly fast.
Re:Self addressed envelope, and 41cents... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.snopes.com/legal/postmark.asp [snopes.com]
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Modding up wrong advice makes you an even bigger idiot.
There's no point in mailing something to yourself unless you are a stamp collector. This is why asking for legal advice on slashdot is a really bad idea.
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And I suppose calling the other an idiot removes the need for including any argument, right? Mailing to yourself *does* prove you came up with it first. Whether the proof useful in a dispute is another question that depends on the work itself. However, it's sufficient for "moral rights", i.e. claiming you did/wrote/invented it first.
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The reason it is generally not useful in a dispute is because it doesn't prove anything; it doesn't prove that you came up with it, and it doesn't (because its fairly easy to falsify by a number of means) prove that you had it at a particular time in the past.
Morally, yo
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