My rival is stealing features from my software. What can I do?

Question

Hi Everyone,

First of all, I'm sorry that I can't tell many details about my software and sorry if my English is bad. I'm developing an application that makes use of some new technology. Then there is a rival software. I notice that its author has been trying to copy features (with slight difference) from my program, one by one, and selling it at a cheaper price. At first I thought that these features might be "common knowledge" so maybe he just happened to came up with the same ideas. Until recently, a "new feature" of his software is so similar to a long-time feature of my software that I can't tolerate anymore, so similar that I'm sure he is stealing. It's a feature that there are hundreds of ways to achieve, but in no way you came up with the exactly same idea. What can I do about this? I haven't filed for a patent. I'm studying in the United States with a student VISA and have little to no knowledge of copyright law.

Thank you very much.

Answer 1

As far as I know. As long as he isn't stealing actual code or design work then there is little you can do. This is rife everywhere in software and technology. People develop whole products based on a another product. Apple were sure looking at Office when they were creating iWork.

It's good though because this means he is playing catching up to you. Just keep making your product better, as long as he is copying you your software will be a few months ahead of his and probably better quality as you don't need to shoe-horn in features you saw elsewhere. Trying to copy someone elses exact feature often makes it worse because your thinking about how they did it and trying to emulate that rather than doing it from scratch.

Ideas are overrated anyway. Most of the most successful products were not original ideas (Office, Google, iPhone/iPod) what made them great was their execution. Make your features work so well they are hard to copy.

Answer 2

License your code under GPL3, try to change your business model so you charge for knowledge and services. If they copy your code they will have to release under GPL3 too. Ideas can't be patented, so they are free to copy your features, if they do so and they do better is their advantage.

Answer 3

Unless you own patent (and the money to fight the legal battles) there is little you can do. The best you can do is to probably throw new features without advertising them first, probably throwing in a surprise element.

Answer 4

How is your software distributed? is it a web application with Javascript? If so, its trivial for him to see your client code. If if it's a desktop compiled application, its always possible to reverse engineer a program if you have skills.

Unless you have a patent on IP, there probably isn't a lot you can do, in a practical sense. Filing a patent, at least here in Canada, costs over $60,000 and that doesn't even cover all world markets.

What I would suggest is to just compete. Build a better product. Give your customers something they can't get from this other guy. If he is really copying you then he will always be a step behind. Make your prices more competitive. Add value in some other way.

Answer 5

You can't do very much about this, unless you get a patent. If your competitor is decompiling your software and uses that decompiled code this is copyright infringement, but if he/she is implementaing similar features you can't do much about this.

This is similar to OpenOffice copying MS Office functionality, Samba copying Windows Server/ActiveDirectory functionality or FreeCiv being a free clone of Civilization game.

Answer 6

Welcome to capitalism, my friend.

Consider selling your software at a cheaper price, so that it makes it harder for your competitor to justify copying your ideas and selling them more expensively than you. That said, I don't see the problem with what they're doing. There's no harm in having a competitor as it serves to increase competition, which often drives innovation, as it's clearly doing.

Answer 7

Have you contacted the other software company? You may not have any legal avenues, but maybe a simple email might be enough to resolve any differences.

Answer 8

Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard. Continue to innovate, and make your features as simple and intuitive as possible. This kind of attention to detail can't be ripped off.

If all the competitor is doing is copying your ideas, that gives you a natural advantage in the market by being first.

Answer 9

Forget about patents. They are hard to get, easy to circumvent (for software). If you can write software that is useful to people, your time is far better spent doing that instead of pursuing patent protection for your ideas.

There is little you can do about competitors using your ideas. But why not use that to your advantage? Market your product by comparing it to your rival's and pointing out which product was the first to have different features, and suggesting that in the future your product will be the first to acquire new features. (Remember the "Windows 95 = Macintosh 89" ads?)