I don’t disagree with you about an NDA. I think that an NDA is an excellent idea.
I showed guys a few ideas I have that make most saddles more comfortable, and there are a few other silly ideas I have (that are works in progress) to help getting up the tree easier. However I have never been so “money hungry” that I would ask guys that came by the house, or came to the Fl saddle meet up event to sign NDA’s. I asked everyone to please keep a couple ideas hush simply because I want things drop tested and released to the public by us so that other companies don’t go out and try to patent them. (Which has happened quite a few times by a couple companies when members on this site have had great ideas). So yes Kyler I totally agree with you an NDA would be a very smart business move for anyone who wants to protect their idea, and I would be happy to sign one for him if he wanted to share his idea with me personally…. As for me and my ideas, I’d never ask these guys to sign one to protect mine, because I have zero interest in patenting anything. I think patents stifle and stagnate innovation. You spoke earlier about narrow protection and how changing a couple small things allows people smarter and with more money to make your idea, I disagree with that to a great extent because in patent law there is a thing called the doctrine of equivalency. It’s where basically I patent an idea, you make the same thing but you change a couple things such as how it attaches or the percentage of attachments on the object, well even though yours doesn’t do everything mine does or the exact same way, it performs the same basic function and I could come after you using doctrine of equivalency. Then it comes down to money.. will there be a settlement? Will a judge see it your way or mine? Do you have the money to cover legal fees until the judge finally ruled (if he rules in your favor)? And do you truly sell enough of the product and make a big enough profit to make it worth all of that in the first place? In my mind patents stifle innovation and improvements, all for the love of money. I get it, I really do, but I just don’t have that thirst for money to see the need for them personally.
If a fellow has an idea, and he knows it's not world changing, and never intends to make money off of it, asking his best friend to sign a legal document before handing him a beer is a weird move.
If a fellow has an idea that might change the world, and he might want to make money off of it, it's an uncomfortable thing that's usually worth doing, from a business perspective. Friends will forgive weird moments when the next beer is of a higher quality in your fancy new man cave...
Patent law, and those who use it to protect IP doesn't equate to "money hungry". They're both based in the fundamental belief in a human being's right to own personal property. This belief is foundational to Western Society. If you think that laws designed to protect your right to own property is grounded in greed, well, my guess is that is in direct conflict with many other values you hold.
I disagree that laws to protect IP stifle innovation. Few things have motivated people like exponential growth of value. You can call that value different things - like wealth, money, fame, changing the world, making people's lives better, etc. But when your ideas can create large changes, you are much more motivated to perfect them and share them. We don't get to choose how someone cashes out that value. But protecting their right to generate it is a very strong incentive to innovate.
I agree with your assessment of the narrow protection that some patents may offer. I am not saying a fellow may not have legal recourse. I am saying that the potential reduction in value, created by all the things you pointed out, become much more likely with a narrowly defined patent. A patent can be useful as a barrier of entry to a potential competitor. But to actually enforce the legal protections of a patent, a couple things have to be true: You have to be able to afford it; and the entity you're going after has to have something to award you in the event you "win". This is why getting a patent for an idea that will only ever be worth 5000.00 is not money well spent. Even if someone infringed on your IP rights, and you sued and won, all you can win is what you can convince a judge it's worth.
I don't share the view that a thirst for money is a net negative with you. Pretty much all of the absolutely incredible changes in human well being over the last few hundred years are a direct result of a person's legally protected right to acquire capital, and use it to fund innovation. The wealth created has lifted half of humanity out of abject poverty, starvation, and disease. Is everything perfect? Heck no. But it's hard to ignore these facts.
Also, as an aside - the lawyers seem to get a really bad rap among the common folk. Everyone thinks they're the ones sucking us all dry. I heard a great analogy the other day - "Lawyers are the coders of society." Think about it - We all have ideas, and thoughts, and desires, and the way we want the world to be. Lawyers just takes all those abstractions, and create a framework to organize and execute them. Most people think "Lawyer = ambulance chaser". I agree we have become over-litigious in America. But trial law gets conflated with business law too often. There are millions of lawyers who simply take our ideas, and make them more concrete. If we have a problem with the work the lawyers are doing, we ought to be looking at our ideas they're putting into code.
Good business lawyers can bill at 300-700.00 an hour. Or more. They can't make that kind of money by reading and editing the details of a contract with no benefit to their customer. They have to be capturing or extracting value. The only way for that value to exist is for someone to create it. The only way for value to be created in large quantities is for us to believe in the right of a person to own it. If we start to erode those rights, you will diminish the desire to innovate.
I'm not saying any of this is right or wrong. Just looking at things for what they are.