A very misleading title. The blog post doesn't describe an entity who copies an idea and goes to form their own company and produce competing products.
Rather, this is the simple case of a "potential businesses party" who copied front-end code, design (obviously), and images. They also redirected traffic of an associated domain. So, beyond blatantly doing copyright infringement, they are also breaking fair trade competition/fraud laws and depending on jurisdictions, trademark (established through use in the marketplace rather than registration).
What you can do to protect yourself against such activities is simple, send a cease and desist letter, file a complaint to consumer protection agency (if you've got one), and possibly send the issue to the local police.
Their suggestion of registered trademark, watermarks, and (meh) patents might increase the reward money from a law suit and increase win chances in court, but it won't actually "protect" you against entities who already willingly commits copyright infringement.
See your point on the title, could have worded it differently indeed. But it was more than front-end code and icons, they had copied the workflow and user experience we had been working on for more than a year, so it was not just a catchy headline.
Rather, this is the simple case of a "potential businesses party" who copied front-end code, design (obviously), and images. They also redirected traffic of an associated domain. So, beyond blatantly doing copyright infringement, they are also breaking fair trade competition/fraud laws and depending on jurisdictions, trademark (established through use in the marketplace rather than registration).
What you can do to protect yourself against such activities is simple, send a cease and desist letter, file a complaint to consumer protection agency (if you've got one), and possibly send the issue to the local police.
Their suggestion of registered trademark, watermarks, and (meh) patents might increase the reward money from a law suit and increase win chances in court, but it won't actually "protect" you against entities who already willingly commits copyright infringement.