First and foremost, trade secrets and trust. Don't tell anyone you don't trust. I know that sounds lame, but it is true if you are serious about protecting a secret. It is better to prevent the action in the first place than having to deal with litigation. Trade secrets are enforceable in court, though you basically have to be trying to keep them secret, prove it was secret, etc. <p>So that effectively means beyond just keeping it secret, it's all about contracts. NDAs, non-competes, etc. You can sign your rights away to almost anything in a contract, though non-competes are notoriously weak in California.
Patents only allow you to sue people later. The main barrier to entry for most folks is attention span. If you're really worried about it, you should get the contracts, etc. mentioned by others.<p>We've used contracts once in the past 2 years. And that was only because we were recently went open kimono on the technology side for a potential acquirer.
Do you use special confidentiality clauses? Some example I can see? If so, do you need to specify you ideas thoroughly?<p>If you where in ConnectU's position, how could you had avoided Mark copying the idea?<p>Can you really avoid it?