Patent:
Wikipedia: “A patent (/ˈpætənt/ or /ˈpeɪtənt/) is a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time, in exchange for the public disclosure of the invention. An invention is a solution to a specific technological problem, and may be a product or a process.[1]:17 Patents are a form of intellectual property.”
- A patent:
- is expensive to prepare
- needs lawyers
- may or may not be granted
- will be expensive to ‘defend’
Trade Secret
Wikipedia: The precise language by which a trade secret is defined varies by jurisdiction (as do the particular types of information that are subject to trade secret protection). However, there are three factors that, although subject to differing interpretations, are common to all such definitions.
- a trade secret is information that:
- is not generally known to the public;
- confers some sort of economic benefit on its holder (where this benefit must derive specifically from its not being generally known, not just from the value of the information itself);
- is the subject of reasonable efforts to maintain its secrecy.
- A trade secret:
- is inherently present, simply by keeping a secret
- secret has to be truly unique not common sense or widely known
- needs to be managed with appropriate “NDA”
- is more defensible if properly kept secret
Copyright:
Wikipedia: Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time. Generally, it is “the right to copy”, but also gives the copyright holder the right to be credited for the work, to determine who may adapt the work to other forms, who may perform the work, who may financially benefit from it, and other related rights. It is a form of intellectual property (like the patent, the trademark, and the trade secret) applicable to any expressible form of an idea or information that is substantive and discrete.[clarification needed][1]
- A Copyright is:
- again is inherently present, by being the author of something
- can apply to many kinds of ‘work’, text, images, videos, user interfaces
- more difficult to defend as you go down the list
Examples to think about:
- The Nest industrial design
- The clicking sound a Nest makes when you rotate it
- The use of two motion detectors inside the Nest
- Pito’s course curriculum documents (like this paper)
- Technique that Waze App uses to correctly predict my arrival time
- Coca Cola secret recipe
- Technique that Waze uses to collect and share individual cars’ position and velocity
- Protocols that Waze uses to communicate between smartphone and server
- HTTP Protocol specification
- The “aeron” chair
- Pivot Table feature in excel.
- The particular physical design of a USB-3 plug and jack
- The particulars of the USB-3 electrical interface and signal protocol
- The particular design of the new iPhone 5 “Lightning” connector
- The signals and protocols for each of the pinouts on the Lightning connector
- Bittorrent