Question about IP protection

timujin · Post by **timujin** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 4:56 pm

I'm new to the forum, but I've got a quick question for those of you out there modding existing stuff and how you can protect your ideas. Ben, for instance, makes portable Ataris and 360 laptops (among many, many other things, obviously). So how does that work, exactly? Does he have any protection for his ideas? Or can Atari or Microsoft simply say, "Hey, thanks for that, we're gonna manufacture them now." And so they make money off of an idea they may never have had and the person who came up with it gets nada.

The reason I'm asking is that I have a project I'm working on, one that is similar in that it takes something old and something new and creates a hybrid. Much like with the portable Atari, everything already exists, and the idea of a portable console isn't new. That being said, the idea of a portable Atari is new. What I'm working on doesn't have anything to do with computing or gaming, but the idea is the same.

Imagine, for instance, if someone came up with a way to take your cell phone and merge it with a standard corded phone (not at all what I'm working on, btw), so that you could have an rj-11 jack on your cell and be able to plug it in when at home to use the land line (for better reception, perhaps)...

All the ideas already exist, but the application is new, so is there anything you can do to protect that? Or do you just take solace in the fact that you did it first?

WhatULive4 · Post by **WhatULive4** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 6:54 pm

I know big companies get sued for using someones ideas all the time. Unless there is some kind of patent I don't know if anything can be done. I'm not a law major, but I assume that if Microsoft wanted to make a Laptop 360 they could. They own the rights to all the hardware. Basically the only thing you would have rights to would be the case/design (I wouldn't call a laptop a "new" design though).

I could be totally wrong too, thats just how I understand it. Using programming as a comparison, borrowed code has to be used with permission. If it is used without permission you could get sued (which Microsoft has been). I don't see why Microsoft wouldn't be able to counter-sue for you selling Lappy360s.