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'Nobody Cares Who Was First, and Nobody Cares Who Copied Who': Marco Arment on Defending Your App From Copies and Clones (marco.org)
Marco Arment: App developers sometimes ask me what they should do when their features, designs, or entire apps are copied by competitors. Legally, there's not a lot you can do about it: Copyright protects your icon, images, other creative resources, and source code. You automatically have copyright protection, but it's easy to evade with minor variations. App stores don't enforce it easily unless resources have been copied exactly. Trademarks protect names, logos, and slogans. They cover minor variations as well, and app stores enforce trademarks more easily, but they're costly to register and only apply in narrow areas.
Only assholes get patents. They can be a huge PR mistake, and they're a fool's errand: even if you get one ($20,000+ later), you can't afford to use it against any adversary big enough to matter. Don't be an asshole or a fool. Don't get software patents. If someone literally copied your assets or got too close to your trademarked name, you need to file takedowns or legal complaints, but that's rarely done by anyone big enough to matter. If a competitor just adds a feature or design similar to one of yours, you usually can't do anything. You can publicly call out a copy, but you won't come out of it looking good. [...] Nobody else will care as much as you do. Nobody cares who was first, and nobody cares who copied who. The public won't defend you.
Only assholes get patents. They can be a huge PR mistake, and they're a fool's errand: even if you get one ($20,000+ later), you can't afford to use it against any adversary big enough to matter. Don't be an asshole or a fool. Don't get software patents. If someone literally copied your assets or got too close to your trademarked name, you need to file takedowns or legal complaints, but that's rarely done by anyone big enough to matter. If a competitor just adds a feature or design similar to one of yours, you usually can't do anything. You can publicly call out a copy, but you won't come out of it looking good. [...] Nobody else will care as much as you do. Nobody cares who was first, and nobody cares who copied who. The public won't defend you.
Maybe the problem is that everyone is doing the pretty much the same stuff. If there's not a lot of originality in what you're doing and you're not standing out, of course you'll be extremely easy to rip off.
Ezekiel 23:20
Shitty ideas are dime a dozen. People with no ideas say ideas are worthless.
People who actually make something new deserve protection from leeches, vampires, copy cats and other assorted scum both big and small.
The fact that the patent system makes it hard to prosecute IP theft means we need to fix the system.
And some asshole declaring other people are assholes for using existing established law to protect their ideas is asinine.
What great ideas has this jerk ever come up with?
Ideas are a dime a dozen. In fact, when you think about it, ideas are an expense. It is the execution that matters.
This is very true. I had a mentor of mine once point out that if you think you have an idea that nobody else has thought of then you should put down whatever you are smoking. Protecting an idea is very expensive so it had better be a really good one to be worth the bother. Coca-Cola is a multi-billion dollar company and they have a product that is ridiculously easy to knock off. But their business execution is second to none and for most products that is what really matters. This remains true even if you have a product that justifies patents and other idea protection. You still have to execute or someone else will figure out a way to make a buck in your place.
Only assholes get patents. They can be a huge PR mistake, and they’re a fool’s errand: even if you get one ($20,000+ later), you can’t afford to use it against any adversary big enough to matter.
A mere $20k marketing budget is not going to buy you much of a competitive advantage, and certainly not against "any adversary big enough to matter". Their $200k marketing budget (if not $2M or more) is going to crush you. The only defense you have against them is patents.
"But if you try to sue them, they'll bury you in legal fees!"
Yes and no... First, those big cases are the ones firms will take on contingency - look at Microsoft v. i4i and their $450M judgement. Law firms will happily defer fees for a bite at those. So even if they try to bury you, they're not really burying you, but your lawyers who are willing to take on that risk.
Second, you don't have to be involved at all: if you have a giant adversary, then odds are you probably have two giant adversaries. So if one steals your idea, then approach the other with an offer to assign the patent to them (with a royalty-free grantback license to you). They'll go after your competitor for you, you get a chunk of capital (and possibly royalties) that you wouldn't have had otherwise, and you can still practice your invention. At worst, you end up competing with one giant adversary rather than two or more.
Mr. Arment should probably stick to developing apps, rather than offering legal advice.