Local inventors or entrepreneurs groups in your area can be a big help with this step!  Typically they have people associated with them who can provide help with securing your business's intellectual property.  See the United Inventors Association website (www.uiausa.com) for a listing of inventors groups in the US.  If there isn't one... maybe you should start one?

Win prize package in StartupNation ‘10 Steps Challenge’

Post your comments below from October 16 through October 31, 2006 to be entered to win in the StartupNation ‘10 Steps Challenge’, sponsored by Southwest Airlines, PrintingForLess.com, Atlas Business Solutions and LegalZoom.

Visit the StartupNation ‘10 Steps Challenge’ announcement post for all the details.

Always keep a Non-Disclosure-Agreement (NDA) and Non-competitive agreement prepared upfront. You may want people to sign this before discussing any details about your business.

If you can afford it, Patenting of your IP is quite critical!

To your success!

When you only have an idea, most likely you can't get a patent.  So how can you protect your idea?

You can't protect the idea if all you have done is identfy the problem.  You need to actually solve the problem in order to get a patent.  Until you can tell someone how to make one of your devices that solves some problem, you don't really have an invention.  Just identifying the problem isn't what's protectable.  It's how you solve the problem that can be protected in a patent. 

Now, if you don't know how to even go about getting such a product made, again, you should consider joining a local inventors group where undoubtably there will be people who either know of someone who can make prototypes or design products, or can do that themselves.  Prototypers and designers (sometimes called industrial designers) often can be found at inventor group meetings, as that is one of their client bases. Any reputable prototyper or designer should be willing to sign not only a confidentiality agreement, but also a work-for-hire agreement, where they assign the rights of any work-for-hire intellectual property that they develop to you.  So, while they may be the ones who come-up with the actual solution (ie., the actual invention), if you're paying them a fee to develop the technology then they should have no problem signing it over to you in an assignment agreement. Get this settled in advance. 

The way this works in the US Patent & Trademark Office is that the actual inventor is the inventor on the patent, but you would be the "assignee," or the owner of the patent.  Once the patent has been assigned by the inventor, the inventor no longer has any rights.  I'm dealing with a client now who has done this exact thing... the inventor is a contractor he hired to solve a problem.  He knew the basic direction he wanted to go, but wanted someone with mechanical engineering experience to work-out the details.  But my client will own the invention outright, even though he's not listed as an inventor.

In all of this, of course, you can only trust someone as far as their signature goes.  Good luck!

Pros and Cons to Using Hyphens in your Domain name (website address)

Advantages: 

• Search engines can distinguish your keywords better and thus return your site more prominently in search results for those keywords occurring in your domain name.
• The non-hyphenated form may no longer be available. At least this way, you still get the domain name you want.

Disadvantages:

• Leads to more potential human errors whentrying to visit your website since the hyphens are often easily forgotten.
• You must say “hyphen” whenever you vocally give someone your website address.

PLUS: 

When choosing your domain name, consider alphabetical listing. Many URL’s posted as links on other websites are listed alphabetically. In this case, www.acme-zippo.com will list higher than www.zippo-acme.com.

I recommend choosing a “.com” as this type of domain name is used most frequently when people search for businesses. But should a .com be unavailable and your target market is in, say, Canada, consider using a .ca.