Latest post of the previous page:
The only protection I can think of that would apply would be a patent, but I'm not sure it would be possible - it can also be expensive.getreal wrote:I didn't realise that, Alan. I assumed it would protect her method. It happens in a lot of "therapies" that people devise. There was one surfaced about 15 years ago, which was a method of interacting with people with dementia (I can't remember what it was called), but I thought it meant that you couldn't devise and deliver a workshop to staff on her method. So that would of actually have been OK?
It's a bit like Coca Cola. The logo and words are trademarked (Trade Mark 427817, if you're interested), but no one can copy the recipe simply because it's kept a secret and that has nothing to do with the trade mark. Presumably any employee who has to know the ingredients to perform their job will be bound by a (watertight!) agreement not to divulge it to anyone. However, for a training method that others may observe, unless they have some restrictive agreement with her, they will be free to use it and pass it on. They certainly wouldn't be able to use, for example, any training materials she had supplied, but that would be a matter of copyright infringement.