Protect out ideas?

[Anthony Goolab]

Greetings fellow Quill Jockeys

What protection do we have, or can we obtain on the multitude of ideas, inventions and principles we create during the evolution of our books?

I suspect all of you have conceived and documented entities – tangible or otherwise during the writing of your books. I have created many new futuristic, but feasible ideas and inventions. Would I need to contact the Patent Office? If I do, will they think I was absolutely barking mad?

Any suggestions will be welcome

Thanks

Anthony

[chrispenycate]

Well, it's certainly not the patents office; before you can patent something, you have to be able to build a working prototype.
There will be an organisation in Great Britain to protect written works (apart from direct copyright) essentially for theatre and journalistic material, ie the form, not the function.

I could ask at the WIPO (world intellectual property organisation) but I suspect that, like defining music by the melody line rather than the rhythm pattern or the overall sound, the continuous exchange of ideas in storytelling has gone on so long now that developing a law to protect yourself against other people with the same ideas, whether or not they've absorbed them inadvertently from you, is probably hopeless.
Unless a government can tax them.

[John Jarrold]

I've never seen anything on a submitted typescript other than a copyright line, as a publisher or an agent...

[roddglenn]

Once you write something down it is yours - there really is no other protection other than to keep notes, files (with dates) etc of your work and how it has evolved. You can post a copy of it to yourself or leave a copy with your solicitor if you want. With technology and date stamping of emails, you can also email it to yourself as well.

[Birol]

I don't think Anthony is talking about protecting his unique story, but about some of the devices he uses to add flavor and dimension to his universe. For example, could Gene Roddenberry have patented the communicator? That's the question I'm hearing Anthony ask.

My answer, Anthony, is I've never heard of such a thing being done and I don't think it's possible. As Chrispenycate indicated, before you can patent something, you must have a working model. Just like there is parallel creation in writing, so, too, is there parallel creation among inventors and the applied sciences.

Alexander Graham Bell was not the only individual attempting to create a device for transmitting sound electronically; he was just the first individual to arrive at the patent office with a working model.

[roddglenn]

Duh...yes got the wrong end of the stick there.

[scalem X]

I think it only logical that you need a working prototype. If you really think there can be made money from your 'inventions' then why not make the prototype and go for it? I see that's the tricky part isn't it. You don't want to invest time and effort in that.
Wouldn't it being a bit like: 'I invented a novel about err take: 'aliens, who live in Jupiter and have been swarming in the gasses, but since they were threatened by a meteor they leave and end up on earth and some of them bring technology and free energy, but the others are evil and blahblah.' So I have invented the plot outline.
When someone writes this book, puts in all the effort and using his/her own style makes it into a bestseller, doesn't that make that person the one who should benefit? After all that person has taken the responcibility to put effort in it, to take the dive and so on.
If you think it's a great invention, then why not invent it for real. Otherwise, the person who 'steals' or comes up with the same thing as you, should get the credit for doing all the work I think.

[I, Brian]

You can certainly have a theoretical model - I believe British Rail famously held a patent on flying saucer design a while back.

However, registering a patent is a long and expensive project, and if you are looking to base your patents on hypotheticals, be aware that other people may also have filed similar.

The big crunch, though, is that patents only provide protection for 20 years, so if you have something particularly futuristic, if it isn't developed within 20 years you've no rights to the concept.

[Anthony Goolab]

Thanks everyone

It's great to have your collective thoughts. I think it would be a phenomenal task to patent everything I have created in my story thus far. I was thinking that maybe I could protect the Intellectual Property.

If there are any contacts in the WIPO I could approach, I would be grateful for their details.

Thanks for the feedback everyone

Anthony

[areader]

I'm with Scalem on this one...few people take their ideas to the truly committed stage and work it up to a novel.
Patenting thinking and ideas would be too hard...sometimes I google some of my ideas to see how much they have been done before...like names, titles etc...that's always interesting.

[JonCG]

There's no copyright on ideas or titles... At the most you could bring a court case after the event to claim plagiarsm or passing off. At least that's my understanding of it. And given how ideas, in writing as much as physics or economics, seem to come in waves (so, cyberpunk, new weird), with everyone riding the same political or social influences I think that's probably right.

[Tirellan]

Originally Posted by Anthony Goolab

Greetings fellow Quill Jockeys

What protection do we have, or can we obtain on the multitude of ideas, inventions and principles we create during the evolution of our books?

I suspect all of you have conceived and documented entities – tangible or otherwise during the writing of your books. I have created many new futuristic, but feasible ideas and inventions. Would I need to contact the Patent Office? If I do, will they think I was absolutely barking mad?

Yes they would think you were barking.
You would have to demonstrate that you have constructed one of these inventions, that it works and is genuinely innovative, and is not an obvious extension of existing technology

[Jon George]

Just a slight aside – many years ago, as a design engineer, I was asked to sign a contract that had a clause in it specifying that any inventions I might come up with would be their intellectual property. I told them that as they were a printing company, if I were to come up with the better mouse-trap in my own time, then I’d be the one coining it in, not them, and demanded they be more specific. They argued, but eventually changed the wording.

I’m still thinking about the mousetrap …