Idea for business. How do I protect it??

Macaholic · Nov 27th, 2005, 05:43 PM

Hi folks,

This is kind of out of the realm of "Mac stuff", but there are business people in this forum of all stripes, and I'm seeking guidance here as a starting point.

My wife and I are developing a plan for a new business that I am assisting her in setting up. This is a service-based business. As such, how does one protect the idea and processes involved in the business as one communicates with others (consultants, potential clients, etc.) so that the idea does not get "stolen". Again, this is not an invention of a physical item or even software; it is a particular "manufacturing" process to create digital media. The components used in the process already exist (software), but the process of obtaining the raw media which we then format into a for-sale product is kind of unique.

So, how do I lock this down??

PS: Also, does anybody know of information resources for business startups? Any forums? Government or independent sites? Things to look out for or not to miss? How about info on handling credit card transactions? Are there businesses out there that can act as a proxy handler for credit card transactions, so that we don't have to set up our own infrastructure for this?