Ron,

thank you for the very interesting link

gaetano

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Though, let’s face it, there aren’t very many truly new ideas out there. People have been imagining and challenging others for a very long time.

It’s interesting that you bring up this issue, because it’s something I saw at the Maker Faire in Austin, TX. The big companies were scoping out the small teams, looking for ideas to “borrow”. I saw some MIT kids “giving away the store” to a large shop automation company. They really didn’t know any better (since they haven’t had that bitter taste of corporate life yet).

Though, there are ways to lock in your ideas. Or, at least, prevent others from patenting them. It’s a process called “Defensive Publishing”; you can learn more at sites like http://www.ip.com. (Think “prior art”.)

Now Defensive Publishing won’t mean that others can’t “take” your ideas, but it does mean that you’ll be attributed as the original inventor, without having to go though the extremely expensive and time consuming process of a patent.

If you want to know the “dark side” of the Google Lunar X Prize, just read this article:

http://www.ghostnasa.com/posts/008moonprize.html

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