Don't take this as legal advice (it's not), but my personal belief is that money is better spent patenting novel/non-obvious subject matter. Execution is very,

Don't take this as legal advice (it's not), but my personal belief is that money is better spent patenting novel/non-obvious subject matter. Execution is very, very hard; if you waste all of your money on a poorly-executed idea, you're basically out of luck. While many people on here like to tout the idea that investors invest in teams, there are many more investors who don't trust people that much--they want to invest in something other than charisma. If all your company has is an idea on which you're feverishly working, it's all but worthless in the absence of patent protection.