Gfretwell makes an excellant point.
Having a patent will not insure you against someone else taking the idea from you.
All it does is give you a vehicle for litigation.
Whoever has the deepest pockets will usually win.
One of the tricks I know of is to keep your patent pending. The minute your patent is actually issued, it becomes public knowledge and anyone can change one little part of it and claim it as there own. two ways to avoid this are to word it so well that it covers every possible angle and to keep it pending.
While pending, you application is not public record so no one can actually tell how much is covered by the language in it.
Only a fool would try to modify the idea and manufacture it without license to do so if they don't even know what is covered by the patent.
