[delhanty]

>a person with such an idea would be able to present hundreds of pages of alternate designs

Arguably, that's much more than just an idea - it's the idea plus the development of the idea, with most of the value being in the development bit.

[timthelion]

True, but if I know that you have been working on the idea for 5 years, and that you have those hundreds of pages of alternate designs, then even just the end result may be valuable enough to me that you would want an NDA.

[spencerflem]

I think the quote is talking about the original idea before work has been put into it, not an end product

[timthelion]

But a sketch isn't an end product. It is not a "realization".