jtr1962
Flashaholic
Here's the problem. I recently worked with a friend who owns a taximeter shop to design a control box for a product we're selling. It's the only one approved thus far by the TLC (Taxi and Limousine Commission for those unfamiliar). We don't want any competitors copying our design. We might have a virtual lock on selling 30K+ units if we can keep that from happening.
The device is a small circuit board using a microcontroller. Would a copyright be sufficient to protect the design and firmware? We don't want to go full patent because first of all, I don't think this is original or novel enough that we would even get a patent. Second, there's the cost. From my reading patents cost 4 or 5 figures, copyrights usually 3. I plan to put epoxy over the two chips to make reverse engineering harder, and protect the firmware from being read if the chip has that capability. Our thinking is if the device has Copyright number XXXXXXX on it, it'll scare away most of our competitors from even trying to make a knockoff.
So, what's the best way to proceed here? And do we need a lawyer to get a copyright, or is this something we can do online via Legal Zoom or some similar site?
The device is a small circuit board using a microcontroller. Would a copyright be sufficient to protect the design and firmware? We don't want to go full patent because first of all, I don't think this is original or novel enough that we would even get a patent. Second, there's the cost. From my reading patents cost 4 or 5 figures, copyrights usually 3. I plan to put epoxy over the two chips to make reverse engineering harder, and protect the firmware from being read if the chip has that capability. Our thinking is if the device has Copyright number XXXXXXX on it, it'll scare away most of our competitors from even trying to make a knockoff.
So, what's the best way to proceed here? And do we need a lawyer to get a copyright, or is this something we can do online via Legal Zoom or some similar site?