Legal Question in Business Law in California

Disclaimer: The materials provided below are informational and should not be relied upon as legal advice.

You need to provide additional detail, as your description is rather vague. First, it is important to see if your "idea" is sufficiently unique and protectable. Second, assuming the idea would be protectable, you probably had to ask for a confidentiality agreement before sharing it with another person. Third, you need to describe what were the terms of this "partnership". Fourth, you need to consider if the other party has detrimentally relied on your statement and taken any steps or paid any consideration that may entitle this party to some recovery. I suggest you retain your own attorney to go over the facts in detail to protect your legal rights.

Ideas are protected by complying with the copyright, trademark and patent laws, and through contracts and confidentiality agreements. If you don't properly protect them, you forfeit the right to complain if someone uses them. I once had a man that wanted to sue because he discussed the idea he had of an online auction site with the woman who ended up starting eBay. He too had foolishly openly discussed what could have been his protect-able ideas and rights.

You admit you had "no formal agreement" that could have possibly protected your idea. Given all that, as to this one person only, you may have 'some' protection if you can show the intent of the agreement through written documents. He can't use your registered name here, but you idea if up for grabs by anyone that hears it.

If you're serious about pursuing this, knowing you'll be spending time and money to take legal action, feel free to contact me. It may be possible for your attorney to work out a resolution without being forced into litigation.

While I don't necessarily disagree with the prior answers, I think the first step here is to look at whether a partnership was already formed. It doesn't take a written agreement to create a partnership, and if the two of you were collaborating on starting up a business when difficulties arose, a partnership may exist. If it does, the two ofyou are or were fiduciaries of the partnership and owe it and each other a duty of loyalty, which includes a duty not to compete with or take opportunities that rightfully belong to the partnership. This might be grasping at straws, but if (for example) by "registering the name" you mean you filed a fictitious business statement showing the two of you running a partnership by that name, that's a step in the direction of estabilshing the partnership and the duty of loyalty.