Join Ideas Union as member and pay fee. (Note, membership is not ‘automatic’ – your Professional Association must confirm you are a valid member.)

You will be issued with a Membership number, that should appear on documents related to Ideas Union files. It’s also advised this Member Number appear on your company website. You will be sent standard merch (Hat, Door Sticker etc) as we issue it. Other planned purchasable merch (Cuff Links, Gun Holster, Sox etc) will be advised in due course.

Register your Comcept. (See ‘How to’.) Including more detailed description. You will be issued with a ‘Comcept Number’ that should be attached to all presentations – anything out-bound.

Upload your ‘proof’ points to your Comcept’s email address. These are initial sketches or notes, emails, white boards etc. Further presentations, phone records etc over the course of concept development should be uploaded to this file - anything that involves confidential contact with other parties. Their time of upload will be date stamped for proof of originality on the Ideas Union blockchain.

Notice ‘breach’. If you see some concrete proof that your Comcept has been used by an unauthorised player, you should gather any evidence of this in whatever form. Photos of the ad or product, screen grabs, whatever evidence you can attain is vital to prove our case. Note - physical evidence, such as mention in a brochure or package with product in it etc is great ‘proof’ for a court case.

Report breach to Ideas Union. Complete the formal breach report form and attach any proof and data available.

Member negotiates with our backing. You should contact your client/ contact (the thief) and ask for compensation and immediate cease of use etc. (Please see our (pending) ‘negotiation’ videos for how to handle this stage.) We encourage members to negotiate first with the client/thief as your long-term relationships and reputation are best managed without our involvement. The point to make is that if this negotiation fails, your membership obligation is that you must hand this matter over to Ideas Union and we will prosecute and aim for criminal convictions if at all possible. Basically, you need to convey politely that if they don’t settle this right now, you have no way to stop the Ideas 

Advise outcome. Member contacts us and advises your negotiations have been successful (phew, you win and get paid!) or that they have not. If the latter, we swing into action with legals and with significant additional costs for the thief, and possibly jail time. You acknowledge we can now open the relevant Comcept files.

Para legals assess case. IU legal team checks the data on the formal breach report form and drills into the proof and data available in your Comcept files. (soon to be driven by AI) This will enable our para-legals to assess the breach and commerce action viability assessment and advise the best course of action.

We negotiate/act. Ideas Union commences legal action and negotiations. (Few really negotiate until, due to Court notice, they have no choice.) We advise client/thief of Ideas Union formal involvement. That things are now out of our member’s hands and they should have settled reasonably when they had the chance. If we ‘win’ these negotiations we will seek legal costs from the thief, plus we receive 25% of your ‘win’ to cover the member’s fund. (Note, there is a strong chance we will negotiate a higher figure than you initially asked – so IU involvement is likely to mean more rather than less money for your team.) Should this also fail to get the desired result…

We commence legal action in appropriate Court for this jurisdiction. We advise you regularly of the on-going process and update where information is available. Note: Most matters are resolved before actual Court as few companies wish to have their dirty laundry displayed in a public Court.

Court appearance. Depending upon the process undertaken and Court decisions, we may require you and/or your team to attend Court. Obviously this will be discussed with you and suitable arrangements made for this.

Result. We either win or lose the case in Court. Ideas Union covers legal costs and any loss /damages as per Court order. Again, if Ideas Union ‘wins’ the case we will seek legal costs from the thief, plus we receive 25% of your ‘win’ to cover the member’s fund.

A commercial concept (hence 'Comcept') that someone would normally expect to pay for. The 'Comcept' does not have to be 'patentable', it just has to be an idea that the target company had not previously thought of, or can't prove it had, that it would like to use. It might save them money on a logistics sense. It might be a great line / way to re-position their brand. It might be a way to lower HR costs. It doesn't matter what the Comcept is, if they would normally be expected to pay for it, it should be paid for - not stolen.

An idea or Comcept itself is of value if it has a use that is commercial in nature. That means that someone else might buy it for profit from the inventor. The idea is yours. If they don't want to pay for it, but use it after you have told them it's your concept, then that's a clear case of theft. Ideas Union will prosecute them for theft and damages.

It's answering YES to these basic questions ... 'Is this theft? (Does our member have a claim on the ownership of the Comcept/idea?) and was it stolen from them? (Can we prove the idea was presented, they knew it was confidential, and they used the Comcept/idea without paying our member).

Can we win it? (Do our legal team think this is a case we can win? Ie, not 'grey' legally)

Can they pay if we do' (Does this company have enough money or assets for us to be paid properly - obviously if they've gone broke or been wound up, then we have to pursue the previous owners – that is not an unusual thing to do anyway).

Yes. They want certainty and would prefer good ideas not be taken to their competitors, so we fully expect almost all larger companies to welcome Ideas Union members and their Comcepts. Keep in mind it's likely the bigger company will negotiate for the lion's share of the profits, so there's a reason for them to be interested. If they don't see the idea, they can't benefit from it. As Ideas Union members have our documentation (coming soon) to support their negotiations, things are easier for the larger company. Large groups like certainty, which comes with Ideas Union.

We will have thousands of members paying from one to a few thousand a year for membership and protection, so we will have millions ready to fight cases as they arise. We'll almost always have more money than the opposing company. So in almost all cases, we will act instantly and without remorse. Understand that even in the rare case where we can't immediately afford a case, because the other side, (say a massive company), may be spending more than us, then we obviously can't proceed. But even with that unlikely situation, cases can still be fought months or years later, (large legal cases take years to process) so as Ideas Union can afford we will prosecute all idea thieves on member's behalf.

We can't absolutely promise to do that, as it's often a police matter, but we will try hard. We can instigate Civil proceedings in most jurisdictions, (for 'civil' things like Loss or Damages, Breach of Contract, Breach of Confidence, Unconscionable behaviour, Abuse of market power, breaches of various Acts; depends on the jurisdiction) but in civil Court cases if it is proven that a person has committed a crime, Court is obliged to refer the situation to the police for criminal prosecution.

On behalf of members we promise to push the Authorities to prosecute to the full extent of the law on issues such as theft, fraud, destruction of evidence, perjury (lying to the Court), even tax evasion or embezzlement, and there's a host of other criminal proceedings that may come out of a Civil case.

The founders of the Ideas Union hate thieves and we want them punished and put behind bars. Help us do it. It will spread fear amongst the corporate world and that will make them pay reasonable amounts to our members for their ideas.

The mere threat of senior management potentially going to jail is the reason almost all cases of this nature are settled before Court, and also because big companies do not want it on the public record that their people have stolen ideas.

We are advised the main purpose of Ideas Union is not the prosecution of thieves, although that is the fun part. But our main role is deterrence - to prevent companies stealing your commercial ideas. That our real role is to make companies happily do a deal with members so the member gets paid a reasonable amount for coming up with a Comcept the company can use.

This will mean lots more ideas are presented. So we expect to be helping great leaps forward in innovation across the globe. If you feel confident to present your ideas, and the company buying them feels good, safe that they won't get sued, and they'll have legal use of the Comcept, then we will hopefully see a significant rise in total innovation itself, worldwide.

The more proof and detail that gets saved into your file on each 'Comcept' the easier it will be to prove you created your concept and the other guys did not. Almost all good ideas go through versions (so you should have evidence of its iterations, white board notes/drawings, early sketches, or notes etc) and get presented to more than one company, (so meetings, emails, presentation versions, emails and texts following the presentation) the deeper and wider the evidence trail, all the better to win your case.

Patenting is a global (sometimes just local) protection system for commercialising an idea. But you can't take out a Patent if the idea is already in the public space – it can't have already been commercialised / sold.

We strongly encourage members to pursue the Patenting route if it's financially viable – do check with your Patent Attorney. Because Ideas Union can only protect ideas up to the point of commercialisation. We protect against idea theft. We can't protect against copying – which is what Patents do.

But caution - when you commence the Patent process you are telling the world about your idea. By definition it is a global broadcast of your concept for others to challenge. So be careful proceeding with Patenting and do use a good Patent Attorney. If you want help deciding, we will soon be publishing our 'preferred' Patent Attorney list. 

No, IU is definitely not insurance. Insurance typically gives you certainty to a set of criteria – your car gets smashed /written off – you get X amount of money or the 'market rate' at the time. Ideas Union is very different. IU collectively will spend whatever it takes to protect our members and prosecute the thieves. But only if the idea is yours, the other company can't prove it had already had it, they stole it, if they are capable of paying if we win. And we are using member's collective funds to do that.

Yes, while the initial version is 'drag and drop', we expect our next iteration, which is due in hopefully only a short while, will be much more automated. Ideally in time we expect our dta handling process to be a fully automated AI-driven App type system that just asks at the end of what it believes was (a conversation or meeting or doc sent,) related to your Comcept, if you want that recorded on the relevant file. And if you discover they have stolen the idea, then our AI driven system will find the exact proof points, and create a letter of demand for our member, so our member gets paid with little input needed by our Ideas Union investigative teams. That's coming.

We have joined together to form the Ideas Union to prevent people like us from being ripped off. We know the problem is world-wide, and that companies will often take an idea from Australia, or the US, and use it in Brazil or Germany – so protection must be a global thing.

A group of Australian (mostly) creative professionals (from PR, marketing, engineering, IT, finance, ag science etc.) who've had commercially viable ideas stolen from them many times in the past by companies who often say things like 'There's 50 lawyers on level 7 – do you have deep pockets?'.

Professional associations take great lengths to ensure members meet strict criteria. This includes specific degrees and often the need to undertake regular career updating courses to maintain membership. It says 'this is likely to be a quality idea'.

We believe in most professional associations' values and feel that we need to be confident that Ideas Union members are of a high standard, and besides, we the founders of Ideas Union, are members of our relevant professional associations. If we are to regularly win court cases, it sure would help if all members are of a required standard.

There are no exceptions. If you do not belong to a Professional Association, we simply do not want you as a member. Join your relevant association if you want to join Ideas Union.

Accountants, advertising agents, agricultural consultants, architects, barristers, botanists, builders, cartographers, chefs, chemists, chemical engineers, chiropractors, copywriters, dieticians, designers, developers, doctors, electrical engineers, garden designers, horticulturalists, human resources, illustrators, inventors, IT consultants, lawyers, marketers, mechanical engineers, mediators, medical device makers, neuro-scientists, nurses, nutritionists, physio-therapists, policy writers, psychologists, public relations, occupational therapists, sculptors, software builders, surgeons, surveyors, systems designers, trainers, vets, writers, zoologists – if we have not mentioned your profession, please advise and we will add it.

Because fundamentally we think a good idea should be profitable for the inventor. We've invented the concept – so we should be able to benefit from its operation. We must stick to our values, your values – that you deserve to be paid for your ideas. FYI, it won't be so profitable...there's a lot of costs running a business like Ideas Union.