Patent protection would take years to be approved. Even if it is approved, how they can prevent their ideas being stolen during the application.
Also, ideas are often not worthy. Big tech can come up better solution better execution so how can one protect their ideas ?
For example, in the early stage of youtube, big tech have all the resources to recreate a similar platform but why didnt they do that ? If youtube was not just popular at that time, will their ideas silently stolen by big giant ?
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The best approach is…. To don’t really prevent it.
It might seem contra-intuitive, but stealing an idea is quite unattractive for a big company. You have to invest huge amounts of money on something that might not work out. Buying a successful startup or collaborating is a way safer approach. You got money enough, and you get your moneys worth.
Each startup is believing their idea is THE BEST IDEA IN THE WORLD, most die, and it is way way way more likely to die if you are hiding what you are selling, instead of screaming it off the rooftops…
I once had a job interview with an ‘genious idea’-startup. At the end of the interview I had no clue what the job was about, so I declined. No way was I investing my time there, although I had all the right skills. I can imagine it will cost them lots of great candidates like myself. And investors. And opportunities to partner up.
Say you have an idea, and are able to keep it secret, and hire staff, and find investors, and create the product, and file the pattern, and the market takes off… All takes one single gap in the pattent to throw it all away… And patterns are notoriously leaky… You basically hand out the blueprint, and with small adjustments, its a new product…
If a big company steals your idea, you can always sue them, and man, then you’ve done amazing business wise. Well done you!
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