Is an idea considered intellectual property?

 Is an idea considered intellectual property? 

Copyrights protect expression and patents protects inventions, and neither protect ideas. In both cases the idea is the first critical step, but without some identifiable embodiment of the idea there can be no intellectual property protection obtained and no exclusive rights will flow unto you. 

Why is an idea not considered intellectual property?

Hm... This topic is bit confusing. Isnt' it?

It's pretty simple, really.

Answer this:

Q: Who came up with the idea of Vampire/ Werewolf?

A: To be honest, I don't know. No one does.

The idea of Vampire and Werewolf comes from the Europian Folklore. So, the authors who write about werewolf/vampire didn't really invent the species or came up with that idea. An idea is not unique. 

There are no werewolf or vampire tales in India. We mostly got the idea from comics and Hollywood movies. We have Indian Folklore that's different.

Every ideas are used in one form or another. Go on, deny all that you want, but how many of you can tell me where your real inspiration came from?

How many versions of Bramstroker's Dracula have we read? How many movies were taken based on that single story? Think about all the fairy tales. How many Cinderalla movies are there? Don't get me started on Beauty and the Beast. 

We, writers, get inspired by anything and everything. We see a movie, we get inspired. We listen to a music, we come up with a new plot. We see two people conversing in the cafeteria, we have a new story to write.

We watch a movie and think, what if this character acted in a different way? What if she married this character, instead of the other? You see, this is how new story plot comes up. 

All in all, the idea itself isn't new. It's not unique. So, the law doesn't protects the idea itself.

Can I Patent An Idea?

Technically, no. Ideas alone cannot be patented.

You can only obtain a patent on the invention developed from an idea. The invention must be actually produced or a description of the invention must be included with your patent application.

You may ask then what is plagiarism? We'll come to that eventually.

Now to give you more clear answers on this topic,  I've also used some answers from Lawyers and others from Quora. These answers will give you an exact idea about why an idea is not considered/protected by Intellectual Property Law.

Marion Gropen in Quora:

There are 3 basic types of Intellectual Property: copyright, patent and trade mark/trade dress.

Copyright: This has to be something where your main avenue for revenue generation is in the control of the right to make copies. (Hence, the name.) You need a specific version of your idea (software code, images, words, video, music, etc) for that to apply. An idea isn't specific, nor fixed, enough.

Patents: Need to be specific enough that someone can use it to create something. It's about processes, plans, drawings, and directions. Until your idea is nailed down in some practical way, it's not going to be patentable.

Trademarks/Trade Dress is a little more friendly to an idea, but even so, you have to be able to make it specific.

In short, you need specificity of some sort to make an idea into IP.

Why? Ideas are a dime a dozen. Most creative people have more ideas than they can bring to fruition.

Any good idea is likely to occur to many, many people simultaneously. I'm from the book publishing world. It was always surprising to me how many times a "new idea" would show up in a raft of independently written manuscripts all at the same time (plus or minus a few weeks). One season it would be X, and the next it would be Y. One would usually hit the best seller's list. The rest would be maligned as copycats, but often were submitted before the first ones came out.

If you could copyright an idea, those people would all be trying to copyright the same idea. And it wouldn't be fair to any of them. Those books are all quite different. The thing that makes one work and another not, is the specific way the idea is turned into words. For novels, it's how the emotional needs of the readers are fed, as well as the traditional elements of literary analysis.

Guy Tritton, Intellectual Property Barrister. Author of "intellectual property in europe" - in Quora:

An idea can be intellectual property provided it is technical in nature. In such circumstances, one can protect it by a patent. However, it must be novel and inventive over what is called prior art (i.e. the body of knowledge that existed as of the date of the application for the patent).

However, in the realm of copyright, there has always been a firm divide between ideas vs expression of those ideas. The latter is protectable but not the former. I am not wholly sure about the reason for this but most likely, it is because protection over any idea that anyone has would hold back the development of humankind which is always borrowing from old ideas.

Randy Gibson - J.D. Law & Patent Law, George Mason University (2000) in Quora:

Rather than simply quote the U. S. Supreme Court, let me give you my thoughts on the matter.

An abstract idea (such as, let's use lasers to mine the moon!), has no practical use to society unless you can figure out the details of how to actually do it (how are you going to get to the moon, keep people alive while there, power the lasers, locate suitable ores to mine, actually pay for the trip, etc., etc.). Why should society give you protection for something that has no value to society until the bare idea is actually fleshed out? It might be a great idea for a storyline or a movie script, but even then, to be of some value to society, you would have to at least go through the effort of actually writing the story, which is more difficult and time consuming than simply coming up with a bare idea. Requiring you to work out the practical details of hiw to actually implement your idea forces you to actually put some effort into developing your idea into something more than just an abstract concept that has no actual use. As the Supreme Court has said, abstract ideas serve as the inspiration for artists and inventors to go out and create something useful, and if you stop people from using the abstract idea itself, then you stop other people from developing bare ideas into something more than just a dream. The intellectual property system in the U. S. is designed to give you an award for the "sweat equity" (I.E.: time and effort) that you have put into turning your basic idea into something of value. Coming up with a basic idea might take you five minutes of thought, but turning this idea into a scientific fiction story, for example, might take months of writing, and turning this idea into a factual reality might actually take years of engineering research and design. The government gives you protection for something that actually takes a lot of effort, but not for your idle day dreams that you never bother to develop into something that people can use. If you cannot develop you idea into something useful, then maybe someone else can, so why not give someone else the chance to try by making the general idea free for all?

Disclaimer: this is my own personal experience, and in no way reflects any official position of the USPTO. This is not legal advice, and I am not your attorney; this answer simply reflects my own personal opinion.

Todd Gardiner - Photographer and questioner of too much privacy in Quora : 

Granting a monopoly on an entire category of writing or an entire category of technology is too broad and would stiffle innovation.

Consider: The iPad is not the first tablet computer. Apple was the third company to make an attempt at these small computers. Before that Microsoft and HP both had multiple failed products.

Should Microsoft be able to lock everyone out of the entire "idea" of tablet computers for 14 years because they came up with the idea first? Especially if their efforts are not making sales? What about people that come up with an idea, but have no way to make it into a real product at all? Say, a science fiction writer getting patents on the ideas in her fiction; ideas she lacks technical skills to create. Current philosophy on how IP should work says that they should not get to reserve the entire idea. Only their specific way of trying to implement the idea, which means you have to know how to make one of these things the idea proposes.

And people that ask this really think that ideas are super special and unique. They aren't. It is the implementation that is the hard part, and the part that should be protected.

Hope this helped. Let's see more in the next topic.