I play baseball, talking on twitter 8/12 put my little saying that I have used for years and was going to trademark. Another baseball player said he liked it told him I was going to patent it and not to steal it. At that time he talked to me about my business and said he would like to do something like that. I did send him some of my ideas via text. Well, he trademarked my idea 30 days PRIOR to me ! I have it on twitter that he told me that was a great saying. He made up shirts etc. trying to beat me to the punch. My Mom sent him a cease and desist as anything with my saying on it we wanted it to be good quality. Because he beat me to the punch, he had only trademarked one portion of my idea and not both as I had tried to do. We signed a concurrent usage agreement due to time and money, not a good idea. His idea was to have # in everything he did. He now has taken some of the graphics sent to him that were not paid by him and is not following those guidelines. He is not using everything with the # as he is supposed to . What can I do ?
If you have the conversation in writing prior to him patenting it, you can prove that he stole the idea. Make sure you have copies of everything and that you make requests from the site where the conversation took place to receive the information directly from them so it can't be questioned. You can sue the person for stealing your idea since you had every intention of trademarking, they just maliciously engaged you in conversation. If or when you win the lawsuit, you get awarded the trademark and any income that comes with it.
To late but never express your best ideas in full to persons you cannot thrust or in the open internet. I would just pattent it anyway and start your idea, despite the other person. You can always decide to take legal actions if your idea lifts of and you gain income from it.