Legal Question in Intellectual Property in Florida
trade secret
I have developed a math shortcut for the electrical construction field. I am interested in getting my name associated with it legally and provably for (if nothing else) bragging rights. please help me by giving the steps I need to register/copyright it.
p.s. I don't care who knows it (I even tell many people myself) I just want to be able to quote it during an interview and be able to prove it (that it's my idea).
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: trade secret
Hmm...the first question is whether what you have "discovered" is in fact anything new. You would be surprised how many times people "rediscover" old solutions to new problems for the first time. My college roommate did the same thing.
If you don't care about anything more than putting your name on it and claiming credit, put it up on your own website as a copyrighted document in PDF form. Let people know about it, and point the interviewer to your site so your self-published article can be cited/linked to.
Bear in mind you have *no legal rights* over the idea; only the fixed expression, meaning your own article. IF this discovery were a big deal in math, you would want to go the peer-review route. You can register a copyright in your article yourself by visiting http://www.copyright.gov/eco/index.html.
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