Stealing Ideas

Large corporations regularly steal ideas from small-time inventors. Imagine this scenario, you have a new invention that you are sure will make you an overnight millionaire. You have gotten a meeting to show it to this major corporation that is interested in buying the product and putting it on the shelves. Millions of households will soon be able to purchase your ingenious product. Except, at the meeting, the major retailer will ask to keep one sample so that the product can be passed around to all of the decision-makers, some of which unfortunately couldn't be in the room that day. The moment you leave the office, that product will be shipped to China where it will be dissected, copied, changed just enough as necessary, and then that will be the ingenious new product that is sold on the shelves at this major retailer. Because they are a billion-dollar corporation, they can afford to keep a team of lawyers fighting any patent infringement lawsuits until the entrepreneur either gives up or takes a paltry settlement, just to pay off the debt of fighting the case. That’s why if you’ve invented something great, the first person you should talk to about it should be a lawyer.