How can i compete legally with the large firms in the below mentioned scenario? I am from India and when i did some research i found out that there are some big and well established companies in the field of windmill installation for electricity generation like Vestas India, GE Wind Energy Ltd.etc. I have developed a product for renewable generation of electricity and want to start a startup, but it is not very complex (i.e easy to get copied) and i fear that those big companies could figure out the working of my product easily and can make a duplicate of it. Since i will be a small startup very few will recognize me and i will also be having less connections as compared to those big firms. Also i do have an option of getting a patent done but there can be a chance that i miss some aspect and then those big firms could find any loopholes and then make my patent invalid.(I guess you must be understanding what i want to say as there is lots of possibility for a product design and it is possible that i miss some of them in my patent) Is revealing of my product in press will be a good idea Please guide me what should one do for the above case in order to get recognized. (i guess after update my question is making some sense)
Patent it Hire a good patent attorney in the field and work with them to patent all patentable aspects.
Your issue is trademark, not copyright. If these other guys use their mark (product name) in commerce but did not register it, they have an unregistered trademark which you could be infringing. Between two users of the same trademark, the first to use in commerce wins. (There is a territorial component but with the Internet, meh.) If the trademark is registered that gives them a presumption of validity. Trademark infringement is concerned with consumer confusion. If someone uses someone else's trademark in a way that confuses consumers as to the origin of the goods, that's a problem. What this means is that if I make tires with the name Sportie and someone else makes soap also with that name Sportie there is not a high likelihood of confusion. Likewise a hotel in Washington called Runner's Cove probably doesn't infringe a shoe store in Florida with the same name. Fantasy games and fantasy books sold over the Internet? Sounds like a potential problem that you might want to clear up before the second book.
It depends upon how much money is at stake. You could have a patent search done and consult a patent lawyer help you to evaluate your risk based upon the results. This would cost several thousand dollars but probably less than $10,000 (these amounts are much less than the cost of trying to get a patent for your app). If you do this and there is anyone who has an arguable infringement claim, you would ultimately have to decide for yourself, informed by the search results and your patent lawyer's advice, what to do. Even in a low risk case, you might be sued. Even in a high risk case, the patent holder might decide not to sue you for some reason (patents of the kind you are worried about are weak and often don't hold up in court, about 50% of patent cases that go to trial end up finding that the patent is invalid and that would be higher with a patent of the type you are worried about, but of course, it costs money to go to trial so people often pay nuisance settlements to avoid litigation). You could, instead, launch your app without a patent search and see if anyone sends you a cease and desist letter and then decide what to do from there, possibly consulting a patent lawyer at that point if necessary. It only makes sense to search in advance if your investment and potentially profits from the app are significantly greater than the cost of the patent consultation. If you've invested $100,000 in making the app and expect to make $200,000 of profits from the app, you should definitely confer with a patent lawyer up front. If you've invested $1,000 in making the app and expect to make $2,000 of profits from the app, you should move forward until such time, if ever, as you receive a cease and desist letter from someone claiming to have a patent that covers your app. Somewhere in between those amounts, what to do is a business decision and a judgment call.
The reason why I could not find the patent is that there are several different kinds of patents. Mechanical patents, for example, are &quot;utility&quot; patents. The cut glass pattern referenced in the question is not a utility patent, it is a design patent. Each patent type has its own numbering system. To search for a design patent, typically a &quot;D&quot; is inserted before the patent number, like &quot;D63795&quot;. This results in the correct patent being discovered:
First of all being the &quot;founder&quot; of a startup in no way implies that one wrote all the code of the startup's primary or signature app. The founder could have hires coders, or had partners, or used open source code. But let's make some assumptions. Suppose Alice has created a startup, and wrote the code for an application. Suppose Bob invested in the startup, and got 30% of the stock, What rights does Bob have to the copyright on the code? It depends entirely on what agreements Alice has made. Alice might have sold or assigned the copyright to her startup firm, call that F1, If so, F1 owns the copyright, and Alice can't reuse it without F1's permission. If Alice has retained the other 70% of F1, she controls it and can have it grant her whatever permissions she likes. But if she has sold or assigned a majority shore to investors, she will need to persuade the management of F1, or a majority of the shareholders, to grant her permission. Alice might have merely licensed the code to F1. In this case she retains the copyright. If the license was not exclusive, she can use the code as she pleases, but so can F1, in accord with the license. In neither case does Bob directly own the copyright, or a share in it, unless a separate agreement granted or sold that to him. But he has a right to a share of the profits, if any that F1 makes, and a right to vote on decisions that 1 makes, long with other owners of F1 If Alice never formally transferred or licensed the software to F1, she still owns the copyright and can do as she pleases, even if shew sold most or al of F1 Note that to transfer a copyright there must (under US law) be a written and signed document, one signed by the owner or the owner's agent. It must specifically indicate what copyright(S) it transfers. A purchase of an interest in a business does not suffice without such a document.
You would start by contacting a local lawyer. At some point you may want to take them to court, and an important question is, what court has jurisdiction? If you sue them in your country, there may be an issue in trying to collect on any judgment, but maybe it is manageable. Do your country's court have jurisdiction? That depends on your country's laws. Step one is to find out if it is even possible to sue them locally. Bear in mind that even though you set up an LLC in Singapore, you are not necessarily suing that LLC, you might be suing another corporation or set of people. So &quot;Singapore&quot; is not necessarily the only other choice. Start local, even if it turns out that you have to engage a multi-national law firm with lawyers everywhere.
This is not &quot;unfair competition&quot;. You are allowed to ask people for their views and take them into account in designing software, even with the specific intent that it compete successfully with existing software. In the US you have a protected right to do that under the First Amendment. If the chat site where you asked is run by the developer or owners of the app, they can ask you to avoid such question there, and even ban you from the site if they choose, because it is their site. But if you went onto a public site (like Stack Exchange, say, or Quora) the app owners would have no right to insist that you not ask for such opinions. The degree to which the design or interface of an app or other software may be protected against imitation is a complex one, and depends on the country involved. But widely known and used features such as a 'like' button, message threading, or a comment section are almost surely not protectable. Listening to users of existing simile products and getting their ideas on what works well and what is lacking is generally a good idea, and is in no way &quot;unfair&quot;.
I'm assuming it would NOT be a good idea to just accept the funding as a person (sole proprietorship). Correct. Would the time be right to form the LLC first, before starting the campaigns on the crowdfunding sites? Or would it be permissible for the entity to be formed IF and once the funding is available? For instance, if the campaign on Kickstarter raises 800 thousand dollars, can an LLC then be created, a bank account opened, and the funds deposited there? Or must the entity be created prior to the asking for startup funds? An entity should be (really must be) formed before funds are raised. This is not a hugely expensive thing to do. For a lawyer drafted one, you are talking on the order of $500-$2000, plus some state filing fees which are modest. I know it's kind of a chicken-and-egg situation, but there isn't a lot of funds available yet for hiring attorneys and drawing up papers before the money is raised. Or should this be something for just forming a very quick LLC and then worrying about the right entity after the funds come in? If you can't afford the money necessary to hire a lawyer to form an entity without crowdfunding, you aren't ready to open a manufacturing company. You really shouldn't consider trying to start a project of this magnitude unless you have at least several tens of thousands of dollars of personal funds on hand prior to the crowdfunding effort. You should also have a detailed business plan in place with fact checked budget lines and reality checked revenues estimates before stating your campaign. If you plan to have patents, you need to at least begin the process of applying to protect them legally, with pre-campaign funds too. Realistically, most people at your stage do a small round of friends and family and personal savings fundraising and often also find an angel investor or two, before going to the general public in a crowdfunding effort. If you can't convince those people that your project is worth investing in, you are probably not ready to run a manufacturing company which will require you to successfully make many similarly difficult pitches to a variety of people. What legal entity(s) would be best for startup funded by kickstarter or other investment? At the state law level a C-corporation and an S-corporation are the same. The distinction is made with a separate tax filing with the IRS in S-corporations. Crowd funding is a term that is often ambiguous and can be used in a multitude of contexts. If it is more than a gift (i.e. in exchange for stock or bonds) there are also securities regulations exceptions that the offering must be tailored to. If the funds are donations for a charitable project, a non-profit corporation would usually be the right choice and 501(c)(3) status needs to be obtained in advance. If funds are raised in exchange for equity interests or non-U.S. citizens/permanent residents own some of the interests, a C corporation would usually be the only permitted choice. If the funds are raised in exchange for interest paying loans/bonds, or the funds are non-tax deductible gifts rather than investments, then financing isn't a concern for choice of entity, and either an LLC or an S-corporation is usually preferred (or perhaps a limited liability limited partnership in lieu of an LLC which has a different control structure). If funds are raised for an operating business with assets that are leased or tend to depreciate in value and has less than 75 owners, and has owners who are also senior employees of the company, an S corporation will usually be the best choice. If funds are raised for a business that will hold assets expected to appreciate in value, or has a financing or control structure more complex than equal shares of common stock plus bonds, an LLC will usually be preferred. Assuming someone is going to start a business that is to design, build and manufacture a small electronic handheld device. A C-corporation or S-corporation rather than an LLC or LLLP is probably preferred for a venture like this one, with the tax classification dependent upon the means of financing and the nature of the owners. Usually, you would use an S-corporation if possible, and a C-corporation if not. A two entity structure, with an LLC owning the IP (if any, other than a trademark for the products), and then licensing it to an S-corporation operating company, would also often make sense in this scenario. I live in Texas, but I assume that the business entity would or could be formed in Nevada or Delaware or anywhere there are more favorable conditions. Not really. A Texas entity would be just fine in this context. A Delaware entity has higher registration fees and legal fees to prepare one, and the advantages it provides for big businesses will often be disadvantages in the kind of entity you are considering. The benefits of Nevada and Alaska trusts are much greater than the benefits of Nevada and Alaska corporations or LLCs. Also, the Texas entity may be more suited to addressing Texas community property issues.