[lien]

i never keep track of my ideas. i only have a few that really stand out and those i never forget. if your ideas don't come back to you over and over again, then those aren't good ideas. also, i try to be proactive about finding out whether they're good ideas by talking to people - anyone - old bosses, old friends, new friends, guys who hit on me at coffee shop, etc.

Why do ideas have to be private? if you have an idea, you can be sure that you are probably not the only one who came up with them, so feel free to discuss openly.

there's nothing worse than being paranoid about keeping your ideas to yourself.

[johnnyjustice]

How do you balance that with the culture of patenting and fear of ideas being stolen?

[caw]

While that's possible I would say that's extremely unlikely, so you're better off getting the feedback.

Think of this way, on the spectrum of loathing to loving your idea, they have to be on the top end and have either the resources or technical knowledge to execute, and now they have to pass you who has a hypothesis already and is looking for feedback. They don't know how much or what you've already gotten, so if they flat copy/paste based on what you've spoken to them about they could be heading off in a different direction. If that's the case they're not really competing with you because they're somewhere else in a different niche.

[dpatru]

One of the best ways to protect yourself from patents is to have the idea first and publish it. It's hard for a patent applicant to argue the he is the first inventor and that the idea was non-obvious if it was published in a blog.

[lien]

corporations care about ideas being stolen because hundreds of millions are at stake. When you are a startup you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. that includes telling everyone about what you are doing.