www.it-ebooks.info Protecting Your Mobile App IP Richard Stim www.it-ebooks.info Protecting Your Mobile App IP: The Mini Missing Manual by Richard Stim Copyright © 2011 O’Reilly Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472. O’Reilly Media books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions are also available for most titles: safari. oreilly.com. For more information, contact our corporate/institutional sales department: 800-998-9938 or [email protected]. December 2010: First Edition. > m o c k. The Missing Manual is a registered trademark of O’Reilly Media, Inc. The o o b Missing Manual logo, and “The book that should have been in the box” e w are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Many of the designations used by o w w. manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as w w trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and O’Reilly < k Media is aware of a trademark claim, the designations are capitalized. o o eB While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, w! the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, o W or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained in it. m o d fr a o nl w o D ISBN: 9781449393670 www.it-ebooks.info Contents Introduction.......................................................................................1 Chapter.1:.Trade.Secrets.and.Nondisclosure.Agreements.............5 Trade Secrets: An Overview ..........................................................................................................6 Protecting Your Secrets ..................................................................................................................8 Limitations of NDAs .............................................................................................................10 Nondisclosure Agreements .........................................................................................................12 Standard NDAs .....................................................................................................................13 Beta Tester Nondisclosure Agreement ..............................................................................21 Chapter.2:.Copyrighting.Your.App.................................................27 Registering Your Copyright .........................................................................................................31 Form CO: Your Ticket to Copyright Registration ..............................................................33 Deposit Materials .................................................................................................................46 After You Mail Your Application .........................................................................................49 Infringement: What You Can Do About It .................................................................................51 Self-Help Remedies ..............................................................................................................54 Chapter.3:.Names.and.Trademarks................................................61 Trademark Basics .........................................................................................................................62 Choosing and Registering Your Trademark ..............................................................................67 Trademark Searching ...........................................................................................................68 The Benefits of Registration ................................................................................................71 The Federal Registration Process: TEAS ............................................................................72 Applicant Information ..........................................................................................................73 Mark Information .................................................................................................................74 Goods and/or Services Information ..................................................................................75 Specimen and Dates of Use ................................................................................................77 www.it-ebooks.info Declaration ............................................................................................................................78 Completing the Process .......................................................................................................78 After Filing .............................................................................................................................78 Contacting the USPTO .........................................................................................................80 Staying out of Trouble .................................................................................................................81 Infringement ........................................................................................................................81 Trademark Dilution ..............................................................................................................82 Chapter.4:.Using.Other.People’s.Work.........................................83 Fair Use Explained ........................................................................................................................84 The Public Domain: Free Stuff ....................................................................................................86 Getting Permission ......................................................................................................................87 The Five Steps for Getting Permission ...............................................................................88 Three Ways to Get the Rights .............................................................................................90 Copyright Assignments ........................................................................................................91 Content/Permission Licenses ......................................................................................................92 Personal Releases .........................................................................................................................96 Filling Out a Personal Release ..........................................................................................101 Using Someone Else’s Trademark ............................................................................................101 Colophon.........................................................................................105 www.it-ebooks.info Introduction T his Mini Missing Manual explains four cost-effective ways to protect applications you develop for mobile devices. The info provided here won’t stop people from doing nasty stuff like misappropriating your secrets, stealing your name, and copying your code. But, if any of those things happen, it’ll give you the legal ammunition you need to recover your losses and, in some cases, get money to pay attorney fees. In short, if someone takes your work and then tries to bully you because they can afford an ex- pensive lawyer, the methods explained here will help you even the playing field. Equally important, taking these steps will reinforce your legal rights in the event that another company wants to ac- quire your apps. There’s one chapter for each of the four methods: • Trade secret protection. This kind of protection is helpful when you haven’t made your app available to the public and you want to show it to others—investors, beta testers, or con- tractors, for example. Chapter 1 explains what trade secrets are and how you can protect them. It also includes two standard nondisclosure agreements and explains of how to fill them out. 2 www.it-ebooks.info • Copyright protection. Copyright is an effective means of protecting your whole app as well as individual parts of it such as the underlying code, appearance, and in some cases, the collection of data within your app. Chapter 2 covers basic copyright principles and shows you how to file a copyright application for your app. • Trademark protection. Trademark law protects your app’s name, slogan, or logo. Chapter 3 explains trademarks and shows you how to file an application for trademark registration with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. • Permissions. Most apps consist of some material from an- other source, like photos, data, video, or audio clips. Chapter 4 tells you how and when to get permission to reuse material, explains fair use and the public domain, and includes sample release forms (with info on how to fill them out). Note: You’ll see the term “intellectual property” pop up through- out this Mini Missing Manual. it refers to laws related to copy- rights, trademarks, patents, and trade secrets—in short, all the laws that protect the intangible ideas that spring from your mind that you express in creative and (hopefully) moneymaking ways. Why not hire a lawyer? If you can afford to hire a lawyer to take the steps suggested here, great. Unfortunately, most developers don’t earn enough to pay a lawyer’s hefty legal fees. (The typical hourly rate for an intellectual property attorney is about 30 times the cost of this manual.) Hap- pily, most of the tasks described here aren’t that tough. For exam- ple, you should be able to prepare a nondisclosure agreement and register a copyright without having to visit a law firm. Even if you do delegate tasks to a lawyer, you’re better off under- standing the basic principles of intellectual property law so you’re not completely at the mercy of your lawyer—an unfortunate fate that has felled many a software startup. Success and longevity in Protecting Your Mobile APP iP: the Mini Missing MAnuAl www.it-ebooks.in3fo the mobile app business are based on a lot of variables, one of which is knowing your legal rights. If you don’t understand the basic rules of protecting your apps, then you might end up scram- bling to retrieve rights that you’ve inadvertently signed over to others. Note: the information provided here is to help you cope with basic legal needs. You should consult with an attorney if you want professional assurance that this information is appropriate to your particular needs. FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION What About Patents? I’ve heard that patents are the best way to protect ideas. How come you don’t cover them in this guide? Patent protection isn’t covered here for a few reasons. Patent law— meaning utility patents, the most common form of patent protection— only protects new inventions that aren’t obvious to others in the field. Although many patents have been granted for software and methods of doing business, the tide seems to be turning away from software protection. in other words, it’s becoming more difficult to acquire pat- ent protection for software, and harder to defend those patents. Patent protection also isn’t discussed here because: • Most apps probably aren’t patentable. • getting a patent takes approximately 2 years and you can’t go after infringers until after you’ve obtained the patent. • obtaining a patent is expensive: it generally entails about $5,000 to $10,000 in attorney fees. that said, if you believe that you’ve created a novel way of accomplish- ing a process using a mobile or handheld device, you should consult a patent attorney or patent agent. Keep in mind that you have 1 year from the first time you publicly sell or publish info about your app (whichever comes first) to file for your patent. introduction 4 www.it-ebooks.info Tip: Your humble author started www.dearrichblog.com, a blog that addresses common questions asked by developers, artists, and other content producers. there, you can look for answers to questions or ask your own. For example, the site includes several entries on copyrighting apps. > m o c k. o o b e w o w w. w w < k o o B e w! o W m o d fr a o nl w o D Protecting Your Mobile APP iP: the Mini Missing MAnuAl www.it-ebooks.info Chapter 1 Trade Secrets and Nondisclosure Agreements T he lucky developers who tested prototype iPads before they were released to the public also had to perform one not- so-fun chore: reading through Apple’s hefty nondisclosure agreement (often called an NDA). Among other things, the agree- ment required developers to keep the device isolated in a room with blacked-out windows, tethered to a fixed object, and under lock and key (and of course, no tweeting about it). Apple’s secrecy requirements might seem a bit draconian, but the company’s covert strategy is an important part of its marketing plan; it’s the reason there’s so much excitement whenever Apple unveils a new product. The whole point of NDAs is to protect trade secrets, which you’ll learn about in a sec. You probably won’t need Apple’s level of secrecy when developing a mobile app, but you should require some confidentiality to protect your business secrets. This chapter explains what you need to know about trade secrets and includes sample NDAs you can use when working with outside folks. 6 www.it-ebooks.info Trade Secrets: An Overview Trade secrets include any confidential information that gives you an advantage over other developers, such as an idea for an An- droid app, a unique method of converting a PDF to html, or a col- lection of data about bankruptcy laws for use in a legal app. Your trade secrets will likely include unpublished computer code, design specifications, business plans, and pricing and marketing strategies. In order for your info to qualify as a trade secret, it has to satisfy these three criteria: • It can’t be generally known or ascertainable through legal methods. Once something is general knowledge or can be learned by others in the business, it can’t be protected by a nondisclosure agreement (with a few exceptions, explained below). The legal term for this is “readily ascertainable,” mean- ing that the info can be obtained legally—for example, you can find it through an online database or at a library. (On the other hand, if someone obtains your secrets illegally—for example, they hack their way through your company’s firewall—then you can go after them in court, even without an NDA.) • It has to provide a competitive advantage or have econom- ic value. For most trade secrets, this requirement is easy to fulfill. If you can show that folks can derive benefits from using the info, that you invested time and money in developing the info, or that you’ve received business or licensing offers for us- ing it, you’ve got yourself a trade secret. • It needs to be the subject of reasonable efforts to maintain secrecy. These efforts usually include logical security proce- dures—like locking offices, monitoring visitors, and labeling confidential information—and NDAs, which you’ll learn all about later in this chapter. If you don’t make any effort to keep the info secret, then it can’t be considered a trade secret. Protecting Your Mobile APP iP: the Mini Missing MAnuAl