Legal Question in Intellectual Property in California

Re: Copyright law

A copyright protects the economic interest of the creator of an original work of creative expression, such as a painting, poem, novel or musical composition. Putting "Copyright 2003" on a writeup of a business idea or therapeutic concept protects only the means of expression, i.e. the writing, and not the idea, concept, discovery or invention contained therein.

Likely, anyone could use your method.

Your best shot at obtaining enforceable protection is to treat your method as a trade secret and get anone to whom you disclose it to sign a lawyer-drafted confidentiality agreement.

Even this is far from foolproof, but if your disclosures are made only to ethical folks who also sign the agreement first, you'll have some degree of protection, more than if you published your ideas under a claim of copyright.