legal protection for FM solutions?

[n1k0]

What options are available for legally protecting a filemaker solution?

Can one trademark or patent their work, such that if someone reverse-engineers algorithms/look+feel/etc., there is legal recourse?

Anybody have real-world experience with this?

[SteveB]

Check web page for their legal books on patenting and trademark issues. On your own, you can always add 'Copyright' to your opening/main screens.

Steve

[DanBrill]

My boss and I sat down with a lawyer to discuss this for the solution I developed. The conclusion that we came to was that patent was out of the question in our case. Too expensive and very time consuming. If you are developing on a platform like FileMaker, odds are that you haven't done anything original enough from a code point of view to be patentable. If you develop a database platform like FM using C++ or something, then you probably do have something patentable.

Notice I say 'from a code point of view'. While the code itself may not be that unique, it may be that you have come up with a business process (of which your FM solution is an integral part) that is innovative enough to be patentable.

Copyright is another story. The bar is much lower here. You can file for an official copyright, or you can claim commom law copyright just by stating something is copyrighted. This protects the look and feel of your product, but not the underlying process itself.

This is a very complex area of law, so don't take my word for it. I am not -- thank the gods -- a lawyer. But in my situation I decided that commom law copyright was good enough. There was nothing in my solution that was breathtakingly innovative. Clients are paying me for having done the work for them. Even to hack it, reverse engineer it, and recreate it would probably cost them more in time than buying it from me. I make it up in volume.

Good luck with your venture,

Dan

[n1k0]

Dan, thanks for the excellent answer!

Your response covered everything I need to know to move forward.

Much appreciated!

N