WebStartupBlog

Any Intellectual Property Attorney will caution you that your business plan and the concepts that make it up are worth protecting from the get go.

Sometimes the energy that consumes a startup can be contagious. Often, friends or acquaintances band together with unique talents and a great idea. They spend late nights together developing the concepts and engineering the finest details with youthful exuberance and team unity - all using their individual strenghts with the common goal of developing the next big startup. 

Enter the old cliche “All is fair in love, war and business“…

Whether due to naivety, lack of business experience or unyielding trust for their business partners; some entrepeneurs find their business concepts and plans highjacked - sometimes when its too late. As noted in this New York Times article, this situation recently evolved into litigation involving the Internet powerhouse Facebook.com and the founders of the related social networking site ConnectU.

As the story goes, Mark Zuckerberg was brought into a concept developed by ConnectU founders, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss. Zuckerberg’s role was to develop what was originally a Harvard University social network and be compensated based on the success of the site. Zuckerberg later dropped out of the project after registering the domain TheFacebook.com which later became Facebook.com. Facebook has since went on to achieve monumental sucess while ConnectU has had limited results from their endeavor.

This particular lawsuit brings to light the criticality of protecting one’s Intellectual Property throughout the startup process. Business plans and concepts are to be protected like sacred scrolls. Where applicable these ideas should be protected via trademarks and copyrights. When sharing information with potential partners and investors, non-compete and non-disclosure agreements need to be formalized among parties. Without such legal formalities in place, an entrepeneur leaves him/herself vulnerable to concept highjacking.