I am building a large web application which is completely unique. I was reading through the WSJ and I read an article about www.orgoo.com. I noticed on their homepage, they have next to the copyright, patent pending. What does this actually do? Because I want to do this with my web site. And, I was thinking, is there any advantage to becoming incorporated? I am expecting this site to be really good, and hopefully grow quite a bit. Thanks in advance!
Patents are for processes and inventions, not for code. So if you've come up with a new way to do something (one-click ordering for example belongs to Amazon) and have a few thousand dollars to spend on a patent lawyer then go for it. You should register the copyright to your code once it's done. Although your work is automatically copyrighted you would strengthen your hand in any lawsuits if you can prove that you registered it.