In order to get investors on board, one of the keys is to protect your business from copycats who might take your idea, use more money, and push you out of your own market. But how does this apply online? Can you patent a website idea or new type of website? I'm not talking about trademarking a name, because that is pretty useless. I'm talking about patenting an idea for a website -- the way it works would be very unique and solve a problem -- it seems like you could patent it. But I have no idea how website patents work... does anyone know?
Even if you get a patent you should be prepared to spend a good deal of legal fees defending that patent. Unless you have deep pockets to defend it or some vc is willing to pay your legal costs because your idea is that good, a patent seems impractical.
I think you'd want to trademark, you might want to patent a specific process, but I don't think you can patent the site itself per-se.
If you are serious about patenting the way your site works, you should plan to hire a patent agent or attorney to first do a prior art search to determine if your idea is actually patentable, and, if it is, to prepare the patent itself. Patents are written in specialized language and you would want someone who can craft the language to make it defensible against potential law suits. You can find out more about US patents here: http://www.uspto.gov/main/patents.htm You specifically want to read up on Business Method Patents: http://www.uspto.gov/web/menu/pbmethod/ Expect it to cost several thousand dollars. You can find out about trademarks here: http://www.uspto.gov/web/trademarks/workflow/start.htm