How does one go about getting a trademark or other wise protecting ideas such as those "xxx for Dummies" books?

You can not claim copyright on an idea. Well, not here in the U.K.
If you have an idea for something then that does not give you the exclusive rights to that idea.

I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong, but you can not claim copyright to a book title or any wording unless it is over a certain length.

A book title such as 'XXX For Dummies' will be protected because the 'For Dummies' is a trading name.

Can you protect a process or information? Let's say you come up with a unique gardening solution and you're teaching it via seminars. If someone else then goes on to write it up and start selling it - can you claim that they've stolen your intellectual property?

Jane

copyrights:

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html


patents and trademarks:

http://www.uspto.gov/main/howdoi.htm

You can not copyright an idea in the U.S. either. Even the writer's guild of America has a registration process to prove ownership on intellectual properties, but even there you can not register an idea.

The basic reason is that ideas are often parallel.

Joe in Oshkosh comes up with the idea for a show about people living together with cameras all over the place. Each week one goes home until the last one standing wins money. The reasoning is that at the very moment Joe came up with this idea, someone else in the world was having the same idea.

Therefore it all comes down to execution.

Joe's show is executed into a show called Big Brother (which is then copyrighted), while the other guy in the world's idea develops into Survivor (which is then copyrighted.)

So basically an idea can't be copyrighted, but the various executions of that idea can be. And as someone else already said, a trademark on something like "... for dummies." can protect a franchise.

I was not interested in copyrighting ideas, but trademarking ideas.

I never mentioned copyrighting.

I was curious about how one went about protecting a concept such as "Blank for Idiots."

Could Armand have trademarked his "generator" concept? (Pop-Up Generator, Smart Page Genrator...) Or could the "equalizer" concept have been protected? (Traffic Equalizer, RSS Equalizer, Press Equalizer...)

What are the limitations of a trademark?

It's all well-explained at the PTO (Patent & Trademark Office) website.

You can trademark a name, phrase, title, image, etc. You can patent a product -- the schematic and design of a product.

I am not sure if you are identifying a "title" as an "idea" in your inquiry, BER! ? That's how it strikes me here -- that "_________ for Dummies" is what you are calling an idea, but the PTO would call it a title, and hence is registerable. The idea/concept/schematic behind the book's content is cannot be protected though, as I understand it, because it's a creative work. (This should be verified directly with the proper offices. I am not an expert on this.)

HOWEVER -- you really need to do a search @ the PTO office and make sure that "__________ for Dummies" isn't already tradmarked. It might be the format of "whatever For Dummies" has been registered and hence you won't be able to use the For Dummies moniker.

In that case, you'll need to contact the trademark holder (guessing it's a publisher) to ask them how you go about pitching your idea for the right to be included in their series.

As mentioned above -- I'm not an expert. If I have made a mistake, please correct me.

Bailey

for a great discussion of the 2 types of patents, Utility Patents vs Design Patents, read the book about the thighmaster infomercial, "this business has legs" ... great entrepreneurial reading too..

virtually all good ideas get ripped off.. eg I developed the online commercial "university" idea back in 1999, with my Daytrading University... (popularized at Corey's site w/my testimonial, and elsewhere) since then, hundreds of companies and people have developed "online universities" for their sites/products... not much I can do, other than have the pride of knowing I inspired a bunch of similar sites..

and I got the idea from when I was an MBA professor teaching at University of Phoenix-Hawaii, and saw the huge success of their academic online university program, which they wanted me to teach. Instead, (this was 1998-99, at the dot-com boom height craze), I founded Daytrading University, quit my night school professors' job (my main gig was consulting during the day, I taught university adult ed at night for lead generation and to help pay the rent) and went on to make a fortune.

the rest is history ...

ken

Bailey,

interesting that the PTO will register a title. That's one of the few things the Writer's Guild will not protect from a script. Apparently ANYONE can make a movie with the same title as another movie. I know it sounds strange, and I don't actually "get it," but I've been to more than one WGA meeting where this was mentioned.