Sharing, ownership and protection
How an Idea can be developed
Floc is not one big open archive. Every Idea is developed in one of three ways, chosen by its Idea Lead. The choice decides who can take part, what others may do with the material, and whether the Idea is publicly disclosed.
Public development — Open source
Let anyone take the Idea further.
Share your Idea so others can use it, improve it and create their own solutions from it. The aim is to help the Idea travel as far as possible, whoever takes it forward. People who build on the work must follow the open licence and give appropriate credit.
Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0
Public development — All rights reserved
Develop it in public, while keeping control of its use.
Share your Idea so people can discover it, discuss it and help develop it. Others can contribute through Floc, but making the Idea visible does not give them permission to take your work and use it independently.
Private development — Confidential
Develop it with selected people before revealing it.
Keep the Idea and its development private to people you give access. This is the safer starting point if you may want to patent the invention, build a business around it or otherwise need to protect it before deciding what to make public. People receiving access must verify their identity and accept the applicable confidentiality agreement before access can be granted.
Compared side by side
| Public — Open source | Public — All rights reserved | Private — Confidential | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Development model | Open-source development | Public development | Controlled private development |
| Main action | Share openly | Publish | Invite under NDA |
| Legal principle | Open licensing | Public disclosure | Controlled disclosure |
| Publicly visible | Yes | Yes | No |
| Others may start an Idea inspired by it | Yes | No | No |
| Open licence | CC BY-SA 4.0 | No | No |
| Search-engine indexing | Yes | Yes | No |
| Access control | No | No | Yes |
| Confidentiality agreement | No | No | Yes |
| Disclosure Log | No | No | Yes |
| Public previews | Yes | Yes | No |
| Suitable before a potential patent application | Generally no once disclosed | Generally no once disclosed | Designed to support confidential development |
The last row is a general orientation, not a guarantee. Private development is designed to support confidential work, but it cannot guarantee that patent protection remains available in every jurisdiction or circumstance.
The words behind the choice
Copyright versus the underlying idea
Copyright protects the way something is expressed — a text, a drawing, a photo, a CAD file, a piece of software. It does not protect the underlying idea, principle or method as such. Two people may describe the same concept in their own words and each own their own description. This matters on Floc: sharing a description openly is not the same as giving away every possible right in the invention it describes, and keeping a description private is not by itself a protection of the idea.
Open licensing — CC BY-SA 4.0
An open licence is permission given in advance. In Open projects, the applicable copyright-protected project material is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, so anyone may use, adapt and develop it — also commercially — provided the Idea Lead and contributors are credited and adaptations are shared under the same or a compatible licence. CC BY-SA covers the copyright in that material within the licence's scope. It does not license abstract ideas, patent rights, trade marks or every other conceivable right.
Public disclosure
Publishing a project makes it publicly available. That is exactly what Public is for: showing the work, attracting people, feedback and resources. But public availability is also what patent law calls disclosure. In most jurisdictions an invention must be new when a patent application is filed, and your own earlier public disclosure can count against you. Publishing first and filing later is often not possible.
Confidentiality and potential trade secrets
Confidential projects are access-controlled: only the Idea Lead and invited participants who have accepted the confidentiality terms can see the project or anything belonging to it. Every invitation, acceptance, access grant and revocation is recorded in a permanent Disclosure Log the Idea Lead can download. These are technical and contractual measures that support confidential development and controlled disclosure. They do not guarantee that information legally qualifies as a trade secret, that confidentiality can never be breached, or that a patent will be granted.
Patents
A patent is granted by a patent office, not by a platform. Using Confidential is not a patent application and does not guarantee patentability. What Confidential does is give you room to develop an idea with selected people while you decide whether and when to disclose it publicly. If you think your project may contain a new technical invention, get professional IP advice before you publish. You can find patent firms, patent attorneys and IP consultants through Connect.
Contributions and ownership
Confidentiality and ownership are separate questions. An NDA governs what a participant may disclose; it does not decide who owns what they create. Taking part in a Confidential project does not transfer ownership of a participant's contribution. Unless agreed otherwise, contributors keep the applicable rights to their own contributions, and the Project Lead and contributor should agree in writing how that work may be used.
Identity verification
Identity verification is required before anyone can be granted access to a Confidential Idea, and it may also be required for particular roles or collaboration settings chosen for a public Idea. Verification alone is not enough: the person must also accept the applicable confidentiality agreement, and the Idea Lead or another authorised person must grant access.
Deletion versus withdrawal
While nobody else has contributed, an Idea Lead can delete a project. This is a soft delete: the project is hidden straight away and kept, unpublished, for around 30 days so the Idea Lead can restore it, before it is permanently removed. Once meaningful work by other people exists, a project can only be withdrawn, not deleted — it leaves discovery, but history and attribution are kept.
Changing environment
A project can move between environments, and every change is timestamped in its history. Moving from Confidential to Public or Open is a public disclosure and cannot be undone. Moving to Open also applies the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence to applicable project material and enables forking. Moving back to Confidential restricts future access only; it never undoes a disclosure that has already happened.
This page explains how Floc works. It is information, not legal advice. See our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.