protecting circuit design

I have designed a simple circuitry to resolve a problem. I want to mass produce it as a product for sale. However, I do not want to produce it on an unprotected PCB board for fear of being copied. I would like to hear your opinion about what might be the solution. Thanks!

Reply to
Rob
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There isn't one.

Kevin Aylward snipped-for-privacy@anasoft.co.uk

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SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture, Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

Reply to
Kevin Aylward

If it's a simple circuit you can only really hope to slow dow the process of discovery.

Reply to
CWatters

Pot it. This way it might be cheaper to buy your product instead of reverse engineering it.

Michael

Reply to
Michael Hofmann

Options

1) Lock it in a cupboard and show it no one, very effective from a copying point of view but it's hard to make money using this method.

2) Put it in an ASIC, very expensive and still copiable but expensive to copy.

3) Remove all identifying marks from all components. Make all PCB tracks as thin, convoluted and weak as you can then pot the lot in the stickiest hardest smelliest compound you can find. Wants to be rock hard at room temperature but emit copious quantitious of acrid smoke when heated and be totally un-removable from clothes and skin once it's on there. Make it on two PCBs that are components together when assembled so that the chances are they break when people try to get the resin off. and the PCBs apart.

That is coming from someone who will try to mend anything that's broken. Those points are the ones that make my heart sink when I am trying to get at the bloody things.

Reply to
Mjolinor
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It can't be d> I have designed a simple circuitry to resolve a problem. I want to

Reply to
Frank Pickens

It can't be done. It is not necessary to copy the electronics exactly. Once the function of the device is apparent it would be easy to duplicate the functionality of it.

Rob wrote:

Reply to
Frank Pickens

In article , snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com says... | | I have designed a simple circuitry to resolve a problem. I want to | mass produce it as a product for sale. However, I do not want to | produce it on an unprotected PCB board for fear of being copied. I | would like to hear your opinion about what might be the solution. | |

Depending upon which country you are in, copyright is usually automatic and not need to actually claim it. Some countries suggests the item be marked up with a copyright sign and perhaps your company name. If additional protection is needed, some manufacturers scrub off the numbers from the IC's and transistors, others pot the whole PCB.

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Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

Potting for security, like scrubbing numbers off chips, is a waste of time, and a lot of hassle. If someone really wanter to copy it it would add maybe a day to the process.

It costs you more than it ocsts any potential copyer.

Reply to
Mike Harrison

Tell us what it does. Most "bright ideas" are obvious to at least one someone else. At lest most of mine were/are...glad I didn't spend any money on 'em.

Sanding the label off the ICs will protect you from the casual copier who would have made two more in his garage. If the idea is a good one (BIG BUX) your nemisis will figure it out in a new york minute. Then he'll out manufacture, out advertise, out distribute you. You did say simple...

The best way is to sell the idea to someone with the legal muscle to defend a patent. mike

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Reply to
mike

If the circuitry is simple, there's no real protection possible. Copyrights will only protect the exact layout, and a competitor could easily implement the same circuit a bit differently. Incorporating microcontrollers, PLDs and such like can slow a copier down, especially if there are hidden algorithms, but if it's really simple your best protection is selling a reliable product at a fair price and gradually improving it over time.

I wouldn't advise potting, sanding off chip numbers, etc. in general, as they just advertise that your profit margin is exceptionally high and the product is easy to copy. Occasionally, we've removed the chip number from one chip and hidden it so it isn't obvious when we've done something special to reduce the cost, but that sort of thing only slows down the garage copiers. Those are also the ones that would tend to exactly copy your product, IME, the more capable ones will just engineer something similar from scratch.

Actually, if you can raise the stakes on packaging you can increase the barrier to entry signficantly- more than from the circuitry. It's one thing to lay out a board and have a few hundred made up, quite another to shell out for plastic injection mold tooling.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

We may be able to allay your fears.

What does it do? Surely this can't be a secret.

Tell us what it does and we'll put all these brains to work.

I suspect a person or two out there may be able to come up with a similar solution, then you don't have to worry about people copying your design.

Reply to
George R. Gonzalez

Do it first. Do it best. Do it again.

RL

Reply to
R.Legg

I recall a dongle many years ago for some software which I think was for board maker. They had used a number of wires which were loop in such a way that they touched the lid. The put what looked like potting compound on the lid such that when you prised it apart you ripped the wires from the PCB.

Another technique used to stop the re-use of software was putting the program in a battery backed memory. Naturally if you should loose the power to the SRAM you lost the prog as well.

If there is any digital stuff - put it in a CPLD.

Don't know if this will help.

Reply to
Fred

If the problem is widespread and the solution is simple, there must be money to be made. So the key here is not technology, but marketing and distribution channel access. Whoever is best at that will win. If all you have is the circuit, and you don't have the sales connections, and the idea's not patentable and defensable, somebody else will probably win.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

"Rob" skrev i en meddelelse news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com...

Patent It - it will still be copied but then you may get some legal redress - eventually...

Reply to
Frithiof Andreas Jensen

As an inventor, one really realises that no matter what you do.....even copywriting, will stop the copying of a really good idea. All you can do is produce it faster, get it out to market first, then make it better, and cheaper than anyone else. Kim

Reply to
Neil

No you wont. Patents can be millstone-like. To sue once you will need a stupidly large amount of money and years, with no guarantee of success. To sue multiple infringers is worse. If thats your biz plan you need to plan for that properly rather than have a vague notion that you could do it and presumably money would pour in.

Without knowing much about your item there's not a lot to say.

Regards, NT

Reply to
N. Thornton

If it is not an earth shattering idea, you are safe simply because nobody will bother. I sell a device whose design is published in detail on the Web. So far nobody else has tried to market my design. One college kid turned it in as a student project and got caught plagiarizing.

If it is an earth shattering idea, like the others have said, nothing is safe.

There is a middle ground where you are protected by your up front investment and having a head start. Anybody who copies you will have to match your up front costs, but with a smaller total market to recoup those costs.

And yet another idea, use the product as part of a service that you offer. Then the fact that you have a clever circuit may never become known to your potential competitors. Your circuit functions as a sort of "dongle" for some other kind of product or service.

Reply to
Detector195

...if its worth sinking a fortune into lawyers etc!

I have a "Prunes And Custard" guitar effects pedal that has a VERY hard white goop over most of the circuit board. Trying to remove this would more than likely cause damage to components and the board. I'm not about to try as this pedal cost me a lot of moolah!

nifty

Reply to
Steve

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