Intellectual Property
I got an offer from Facebook - I understand that everything I create will become their intellectual property, but my concern is: My wife had a few ideas a while ago and has been working on them, but she did not set the company yet (no LLC, nothing), no website, just doing the initial researches. How do we make sure her ideas are protected?
Have her ideas notarized, and consider patenting them, too. In the US, it’s the first to conceive, not the first to patent. Establishing an LLC would be good but not necessary.
Thank you! Do you know if the idea needs to be fully developed? Business plan, market research, UX, UI, etc?
For a patent to uphold, you will need to describe and illustrate how it works. This includes processes, formulas, and algorithms. You will need to find the balance between being too specific to the point where someone can change one or two things to circumvent, and the other end is being too vague to be overreaching and not enforceable. Understand that writing it to be in the sweet spot is an art. For notarizing, you can have your idea be incomplete but try to outline as much as you can. Many inventors will notarize as the faster, cheaper option and will do this at different increments of their process. Another word of advice here is not use a notary who is related to you in any way (e.g. a friend or family member) to avoid any conflict of interest later on. End of the day, you’ve protected what’s documented. So if it’s not documented, then you can’t overreach later and say “it was inferring x,y,z” You can also try filing a provisional patent that is not a full fledged patent, is cheaper, and has a shorter duration but it gives you about a year to file for a full fledged patent. In the meantime, it lets you say “patent pending” Remember, it’s your job to research and reference prior work and know how to explain why your patent is different. Also, know that filing a patent is not enough and your job doesn’t end there. You have the onus of staying updated about any patents filed after yours and defending yours against any others that appear to be infringing. This is why corporations have teams of people dedicated to this. The current state of patent offices are broken in this sense and don’t do a great job of preventing duplicative patents. Last but not least, also consider consulting a litigation attorney for advice.
Is your wife employed by Facebook? If it then her IP has no bearing on your agreement. If you're worried about it there are employment and IP attorneys out there who would be happy to chat with you.
No. She is starting her own company - I am concerned that since her products cover social networks as well, they might claim something because we are married.