Does anyone here know if you can patent ideas? When I mean ideas, I mean ideas not for an invention but ideas for a movie, TV show, or something that has no physical presence to it and hasn't even been fully developed yet or thought out yet. I'm only wondering because I've had ideas for a particular movie I would love to create in the future, but I wouldn't want to sell the idea unless I knew it was protected under law from being copied. Does anyone know anything about this?

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 50 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Yes, you can do that, assuming your ideas aren't vague enough.

Do your research throughly before you do anything though. You don't want to ever involve yourself in the government's affairs if you don't know your stuff.

Well my ideas are more along the lines of making a type of documentary that has never before been attempted and is in unknown territory. As far as it interfering with the governments affairs, I'm not at all sure that it would.

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 50 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Be aware it costs money to obtain and sustain a patent though. You better have a source of income.

By involving yourself in government affairs, I meant using the patent office. Don't contact them to get the process going without knowing exactly what you're doing.

I'll have to think more about this before I would ever attempt it. I'm just wondering how can you put value on patenting an idea, not an actual physical product. I will have to do some research and find out more about it.

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 50 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Copyrights are not the same as patents. You always automatically have copyrights over anything you create. You don't have to do anything to get them. You can use a (costly) patent to protect new ideas or concepts or shapes expressed in your creations.

Write your idea down in detail, a lot of detail.
Put in in an envelope.
Sent it to yourself.
Don't open it.

This will be dated, so if anyone does something similar, you can sue for copyright infringement.