Legal Question in Business Law in Washington

Re: What document(s) do I need?

Not enough information is available here to give you an adequate answer.

First, what is your situation? Are you seeking to protect yourself from a particular party, or just in general? Are you an employee, an employer, a consultant on a contract basis, or the seller of a business?

Second, what is the status of what you want to protect? Have you already invented something? Have you patented it? Are you just in the deveopment stage now, or are you just forming the idea now? Are your packaging ideas merely ideas, or something you have in use for your product now? Same questions for the proprietary formulas.

Also, knowing what documents you need is just the start. Knowing what to put in them is the hard part. Variations will be necessary depending on your particular situation. In some situations (for example, if you are an employee) much will be dictated by statute, and you need fewer documents. Also, ideas that are just in the idea stage and haven't been reduced to a tangible, usable sample can generally not be protected.

When I write lawguru answers, I often try to write practical advice that enables people to do what they can for themselves if they cannot afford an attorney. In your case, however, I would really encourage you to find a business law attorney and buy an hour of his or her time to get a clear picture of what you need in your case. Some of your work might best be handled by a patent attorney, or perhaps an employment law attorney, depending on your situation, and there are probably things you can also do yourself, but you need to spend the time to lay out ALL of the details and get a proper "diagnosis".