Legal Considerations in Presenting a Business Idea to an Employer

Question

So, you have an idea for a potentially successful online launch. You know that you will never forget about yourself; you prefer the stability of your constant work. Then you think: “Hey, maybe my boss would be interested in supporting this as an internal project. Obviously, I would like to get X% of the profit for developing the concept in the first place, and I want to resign when we buy BigCorp . "

• Can you follow any legal procedures so that none of you talk about the fact that a business idea does not use it on its own?

• What kind of deal should you look for (e.g., share of profits, stocks, etc.)?

Answer 1

IANAL, but I was around the block several times.

First, find a competent lawyer who specializes in startups and gets some professional advice and will follow him. Preventive advocacy is indeed much cheaper than waiting until it's too late.

Secondly, protect yourself and make sure that you do everything in writing. If your employer does not bite, and you decide to do it yourself, then you will be protected when you succeed, and your company will return later and try to declare itself. I saw how this happened more than once.

Third, try to get the people you submit to sign without disclosure. If they have half the brain, they will not sign one, but this is an important sign of your intentions. Without the NDA, do your best to not pass on your idea to anyone who can accept the idea and launch it based on your elevator height. This usually means truly competent technical people or business experts.

If you have to worry about the deal, return to the competent lawyer you retained.

Answer 2

To answer your first question: no. There you can’t do anything, it will not allow someone to use your idea. In addition to patenting. (Which you are not really supoposed to be able to do if you have already at least partially implemented it in the first place).

My advice: if you know someone you trust in order not to steal your idea, tell them. If not, do not do this.

Also, if you have an idea, and you tell your boss, you really are not eligible for X% profits. It just has to be part of your job.

Sorry: this probably sounds like a negative answer, but I try to be realistic.

Ben