Regardless of what you might have heard to the contrary, ideas cannot be patented and they cannot be copyrighted. There is no way to protect an idea.  This does not mean that you should give up when you only have an idea, but it does mean that you will need to proceed to flesh out your idea to the point where it is concrete enough to be more than what the law would call a “mere idea.”

The moral of the story is that ideas alone cannot be protected, so you need to think in terms of invention.  Inventions can be patented.

The good news, however, is that many times people think they only have an idea when they actually have an invention. See Turning Your Idea into an Invention with a Good Description.

The idea is the first critical step toward being able to obtain a patent, and in my experience many inventors think they only have an idea and are not yet at the invention stage when, in fact, they really do have an invention that could be protected.

Many inventors are surprised to learn that you do not need a prototype or working model. You have to describe the invention in writing with enough specificity.  Of course, if you have a prototype (even a crude one) or some kind of working model you will likely have learned a good deal more and be able to describe more, but if what you have is unique and it can be described it can be protected.

So what to do if you are stuck and need to move forward? One thing that I recommend is that you consider using the Invent + Patent System™ to help you flesh out your idea and put enough meat on the bones of the idea so that it will be transformed into a detailed description and invention.  I created the Invent & Patent System™ to help me teach my law students how to write patent applications.  It was so successful that I adapted it for use by independent inventors, and since 2004 it has been used successfully to help many thousands of inventors create and file their own provisional patent applications.