If you invent an idea, but do not patent it and someone steals theidea. Does it violate Intellectual Property

So if you do not patent an idea of ours and someone takes the idea and patents it themself, does it violate intellectual property?

It depends. If you can prove you're the inventor (there are a couple of ways to do this). An easy to understand guide is "Patent Law: Third Edition" by Ronald B. Hildreth. Another way is that if your idea is a trade secret (something that's kept a secret within your company) that's stolen, there is also recourse for that.

Nope.

of course not.

No. That's the whole reason for patents to exist, to protect your intellectual property from being used without your permission. If you don't patent it, there's no way to prove that you came up with it first, that the other person didn't come up with it independently, or that you have any rights to regulate its use. If you don't patent it, it's fair game for anybody else.

Ask Al Gore.

If you can prove it was originally your idea you can recover some of the intellectual rights but it is difficult.

It could be if you documented the idea. If you have a dated notebook that you keep all of your ideas in... you might have a case. If not, maybe you can sue them in your mind.

If you can prove that you invented the idea yourself before he did then you can challenge the patent.

Even if you patent something, and trademark it, basically anyone with enough money can come in and steal it, and unless you have enough money to fight it, your patent and trademark really don't amount to much.

take your idea, seal in an envelope, and mail it to yourself..but don't open it. The post mark, will show the date you had the idea.

no I don't think so because we all know the same things. It just depends on how fresh it is in your head. And some people act on "ideas" they came up with and put patent on them. That just limits our thinking about things, because now we can't use this idea. And then what if something can be made better, if there's a patent on it what can we do.

No. The act of patenting an idea formally recoginizes and "proves" that the idea is original and belongs to a certain person(s).

Without official recognition I would say that it would be hard to say that the idea was stolen.

If that was the case anyone could go around now and say that Microsoft was their idea. But, who would believe them?

no at all if he take it legally,not steal it

If you don't patent, you have no recourse. That's why people spend thousands of dollars on patent attorneys.

Sorry.

I do not know, but here is how you can prove that your idea was the original. If you wrote it down, then DATE AND SIGN IN INK. Make a couple of copies. Even mail one to yourself. The mailed one will have a postmark on it. This is called Poor-mans Patent. I've done this myself on my designs, and I'm only 15. If your dates come before theirs, then yours was obviously the original. Now if you never met or had any contact with the other person, then it is just a coincidence that they had the same idea as you.