How to protect a business idea in Morocco: NDAs, OMPIC and data rooms

"What if they steal my idea?" It's the question project owners ask most often before showing their file. The honest answer starts badly: in Morocco as elsewhere, the law doesn't protect an idea. It protects its expression, its date and its name. A contract and controlled sharing do the rest.

Key points

• Morocco's copyright law, Law 2-00, expressly excludes "ideas, processes, systems, methods of operation, concepts" from protection (Adala, Ministry of Justice, consolidated text).
• OMPIC's e-Datage service provides proof of prior existence valid for five years, for MAD 200 before tax (MAD 265 including tax), without granting any property right (OMPIC).
• Professional investors nearly always refuse to sign a confidentiality agreement at first contact (Cooley GO, 2023). An NDA protects detailed documents, not the first pitch.

Can you protect an idea in Morocco?

No. Article 8 of Law 2-00 on copyright states that its protection does not extend to "ideas, processes, systems, methods of operation, concepts, principles, discoveries or mere data, even if expressed, described, explained, illustrated or embodied in a work" (Adala, our translation).

What the law protects is the form. Your business plan, pitch deck, texts and logo are works, protected from the moment they're created, with no filing required (Article 2). Someone who reuses your concept in their own words isn't copying them.

Industrial property follows the same logic: Law 17-97 does not treat "plans, principles and methods for carrying out intellectual activities" as inventions (HACA, consolidated text). A business model can't be patented.

In practice, an owner therefore protects four things: the date of their project, its name, any technical inventions, and the way they share the rest.

How do you date your project with OMPIC's e-Datage?

e-Datage is the service from OMPIC, Morocco's industrial and commercial property office, that provides proof of prior existence, on the same principle as France's "enveloppe Soleau". It rests on Law 23-13, which amended Law 17-97. You file a document online, and OMPIC certifies that it existed on that date, for a period of five years. The cost is MAD 200 before tax, or MAD 265 including tax and payment fees (OMPIC).

OMPIC is clear about the limit: dating "grants no property right and offers no protection". It's evidence, useful in a dispute to show you had the project before someone else. Date your business plan and pitch deck before you show them, and again at each major version.

What should you file with OMPIC?

The trademark, first. Your project's name is often the easiest thing to copy. A trademark filed with OMPIC is protected for ten years, renewable indefinitely (OMPIC).

The industrial design, if appearance matters. For a product whose shape or design sets it apart, protection lasts five years and can be renewed for four more five-year periods (OMPIC).

A patent, only for an invention. An invention is patentable if it's new, involves an inventive step and can be applied industrially (HACA, Law 17-97). That covers a new farming process, not a service idea.

Should investors sign an NDA?

Not at first contact. The law firm Cooley, which advises many startups, notes that professional investors nearly always refuse to sign an NDA at that stage, for practical reasons (Cooley GO, 2023). They meet competing companies and can't bar themselves from discussing them. Tracking hundreds of agreements is costly. And an investor who leaked information would lose their reputation, which is their main asset.

Good practice is therefore to separate two levels. The first contact (pitch line, pitch deck, video) contains nothing you couldn't bear to hear repeated. The second (detailed financials, contracts, customer lists, processes) only opens after a confidentiality agreement, to an investor who has shown real interest. Our pitch deck guide covers what belongs in the first level.

Is an NDA signed online valid in Morocco?

Law 43-20 on trust services for electronic transactions, published in the Official Bulletin in 2021, distinguishes three levels of electronic signature: simple, advanced and qualified (Article 4). Its Article 7 provides that the legal effect and admissibility as evidence of a simple or advanced signature "cannot be refused solely" because it's electronic or not qualified. Only a qualified signature with a qualified timestamp gives a document a legally certain date (Adala).

An NDA accepted online is a simple signature: it is admissible as evidence, and its weight depends on what can be shown about who signed, when, and which version. For a major transaction, an agreement drafted by your lawyer is still preferable. This article is not legal advice.

How the M Invest data room protects your documents

The portal applies these two levels document by document.

Visibility, item by item. On a business project, each figure is visible to members, reserved for NDA signatories, or hidden. Each document is visible to members or reserved for signatories. By default, only the pitch deck is visible to members.

Two keys to get in. To open reserved items, an investor needs an introduction request you've accepted and a signed confidentiality agreement for the project. You see their trust index, scored out of 100, before you accept.

An agreement with its evidence. The investor types their full name, which must match their account, and accepts the agreement. The version, date, IP address and browser are kept. The agreement binds them to use the information only to evaluate the project, for two years, with no copy outside the data room, sharing it only with advisers bound by the same obligations. It is governed by Moroccan law.

An access log. Every time a document is opened, it's recorded and you get a notification. You know who read what, and when.

M Invest keeps the signature evidence and the log, but is not a party to any transaction between you and the investor, and handles no financial transactions. The data room with NDA is included from the Gold owner plan upwards; on the Bronze plan, a business project's data room is limited to the business plan and the cover image.

The checklist before you present your project

1. Date your business plan and pitch deck with e-Datage.
2. File the project's trademark.
3. Reread your deck: nothing in it should worry you if it circulates.
4. Classify every figure and document: visible to members, after NDA, or hidden.
5. Put the split between partners in writing before opening the capital.
6. Check the access log after each introduction.

Share without exposing yourself

A project that isn't shown finds no investors. A project that shows everything to everyone worries them. The portal gives you the means to choose, document by document. For the next step, read our guide to finding investors in Morocco.

Choose my project-owner plan, with yearly prices shown in dirhams. Want to work out what you can safely show? A 30-minute advisory call can be booked without membership, for MAD 599, cancellable free of charge up to 24 hours before.