Legally protecting your amazing idea
Luke Janssen
I get approached from time to time by people who want to share their ideas with me to see what I think of them, but before they do they ask me “can you sign an NDA?”.
So what I do is rather than sign theirs I give them the one I wrote. I managed to distill it down to one page. If you want to use it feel free!
MUTUAL NONDISCLOSURE AGREEMENT (NDA)
This Mutual Nondisclosure Agreement (this “Agreement”) is made
by and between _______________ and __________________.
You are asking for this NDA to be signed because you think, incorrectly, that your idea is worth something. It isn’t. There is almost zero chance that your idea is groundbreaking or even original. But let’s imagine for a minute that you have managed to fluke out and come up with the next Groupon. The fact that you are asking us to sign this NDA tells me that you have no chance of executing on it. And it is execution that matters, not the idea.
In our experience people who hang on to ideas and try to keep them secret and protect them never succeed. People who share their idea and find people to collaborate with do. If you are the sort of person who thinks that people are “out to get you”, (which asking me to sign this NDA tells me that you are) then that is exactly what will happen. If you believe you will be taken advantage of, you will be.
1. INJUNCTIVE RELIEF
What does this even mean? It means how much money you will get if you tell us your amazing and groundbreaking idea, and we nick it and cut you out of the loop. But just think about this for a minute. How likely is this to happen? First of all research shows that everyone over-values their own ideas, so no matter what your idea is worth (virtually nothing) you think it is worth more than it actually is. What I am saying here is that your already shit idea is likely way shitter than you think, so why would we steal it when we have lots of other way better ideas every day? Secondly, even if we do steal it, do you have William Shatner from Boston Legal working for you for free? I thought not, so how the hell are you going to sue us or anyone anyway! With your own money? If you had that much you wouldn’t be talking to us.
2. LEGAL PROCESS
Have you heard of the Wright Brothers? They invented (and patented) flying. Do you know what happened to Wilbur Wright? Instead of continuing to innovate and build and execute, he spent all of his time suing people that infringed the patent and it ended up stressing him out and died at age 45. A life that should have been an amazing adventure in flying and building new planes, ended up being a lawyer stress-fest. How idiotic. Don’t be like Wilbur.
3. SIGNING
In witness whereof, the parties have executed this Agreement through their duly authorized Representatives. This sentence was actually lifted from an NDA someone made us sign. I hate legal wording crap! So we are not asking you to sign any NDA, and nor will we; so tell us your shitty idea, and in the 1,000,000 to 1 chance that it is actually good, we can help you execute it.