Games

John,

Your position concerning not signing a NDA is sound but what would you suggest a new inventor do to protect themselves besides filing for a provisional patent when they're approaching manufacturers to produce a prototype or companies to license it?

Charles.

Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 18:25:01 -0400
Message-ID: <redirect-10702153[_at_]cni.org>
From: John Levine <johnl[_at_]iecc.com>
Subject: Re: [CNI-(C)] Re: game idea = copyright or patent? In-Reply-To: <list-10701251[_at_]cni.org>

>the only, or perhaps the best, and most certainly the cheapest, tho'
>never easiest way to protect an idea is to obtain a confidentiality
>agreement before presenting it

Other than the minor detail that no game company in the world would sign such an agreement, it sounds like a swell idea.

I'm sure I'm not the only person around who realized some years ago that it is simply not in my interest to agree to any sort of NDA with someone who wants to pitch something to me. It's invariably a me-too idea, often an idea that I'm already familiar with from other sources, and an NDA now means that I have to document where I already knew about it or risk getting sued and losing. Who needs the grief?

The only NDAs I'll agree to are with someone with whom I've already agreed to do business, on material where I already have a pretty good idea what it is about.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl[_at_]taugh.com, Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY http://www.taugh.com Received on Fri Jun 17 2005 - 00:00:00 GMT