How do i patent a business idea?

Cyrus

ive been formulating a plan for a business (online) for a while now and i want to try and set something up.

Firstly is it possible to patent or copyright a business idea?

if so how can it be done? its actually a pretty simple plan but on first glance appears as of yet unavailable

cheers

kluivert

I no you can patent an invention, product and business name, but a business idea is something that I am not sure about.

Patent a business idea would it not create a monopoly as such.

BC

http://www.patentsoffice.ie/

themole

you cannot patent a business idea in Ireland/EU or most of the world. The US and, i think Japan, are possbily the only two places in which you can.

You could get a patent in the US but this would only apply to the US, so you could not protect the business in Ireland/EU.

ArthurDent

Cyrus wrote:

ive been formulating a plan for a business (online) for a while now and i want to try and set something up.

Firstly is it possible to patent or copyright a business idea?

if so how can it be done? its actually a pretty simple plan but on first glance appears as of yet unavailable

cheers

It sounds like you want to protect a way of doing something rather than producing something (very simplistic), if that is the case you cannot patent it, to patent something you must be able to reduce it to practise and it must be novel and non-obvious. Perhaps capy-writing may be the way to go, although without more info its difficult to assess.
It could be that what you are describing more readily fits into "know-how" and as such generally is not copywrited but kept as a trade secret. Patenting is madly expensive, copywriting somewhat less so, but both require professional advice.

mox54

I don't think a patent is for you and besides it will cost approx €20,000 for a kick off and then a bit more - it must be translated into every European language etc etc - perhaps copywrite is the way ahead or intellectual property - a good solicitor will help - :rolleyes:

Finally let me ???? on you're chips - most good ideas / new ideas have been done before and it's not so original after all, it's when you head to the patent office and spend some dough that you find this out - :cool:

BC

You can't copyright an idea but you can possible copyright the application of the idea, e.g if its a film, book, database, computer program etc.

OP - Check out the patents office website, its fairly clear. You cannot patent a method of doing business and you cannot patent software (in Ireland).