How to protect my business idea which is not yet registered?

671 votes

Ideas per se are not protectable in India unless you write them down and make a note and the same will be treated as a literary work under the Copyright law provided it is new and novel or file a patent application. You should not disclose your idea to any third party without entering into a Non-Disclosure Agreement so that the third party undertakes to keep your idea confidential. Furthermore, you should copyright/ patent your work. If you’re revealing an idea to a potential investor, a possible client, or a contractor, do some research about the said person. See if the said person has been involved in any disputes with previous business partners and make sure the person has established a positive reputation in his or her chosen field

Advocate Diva Arora Menon LawRato

846 votes

You cannot protect your business Idea. Indian laws do not permit protection of ideas. Maximum what you can do is to pen down the whole workflow of your idea along-with the UI of your idea and get it copyrighted but I would still not recommend it. I am a lawyer + start-up entrepreneur myself and have my own mobile app, so I can very well understand what you might be thinking. But just a piece of advice which many learned people from start-up ecosystem says. Every 10 second there is a new idea which is generated and it does not matter about your idea what matters is your execution.

Advocate Kanishk Agarwal LawRato

1000 votes

There are a few options under the Intellectual Property Laws to safeguard it like Copyright, Patent filing.
You can simply file the application without waiting for it to be registered.
You can also sign a NDA with trailing documentation with someone to prepare a document of your idea and the date of it. If anyone uses the idea, you can show it to prove your priority.
Rest would require a few details to answer your query effectively.

Advocate Atit Jain LawRato