That doesn't make any sense?
If it goes to court, I would be the one filing the lawsuit and/or PATENT infringement ... the defendant would need to show what they have isn't the same as my PATENT (that's more than just source code BTW). You don't seem to understand how the legal system works (been there done that).
Cheers, Rob.
And the defendant's attorney will be the first to ask for proof of ownership. In most countries, software cannot be patented.
I'd recommend you do a little more research on her (Nicole) ... and get the actual evidence of her claims ... false fear websites. Fear mongering is how one controls a population of those that "want to believe".
Follow the money trail to get a better insight of her "sensational" journalism ... that will give you a better picture of the real vs. the fake.
BTW, the NSA doesn't comment on "how things got out" ... that's a hint.
Anyway, this has shifted way off topic, so I'll bow out but please research from multiple sources.
Cheers, Rob.
Sorry, but that's a false statement. Not sure why you seem intent on defending theft?
Cheers, Rob.
Do the volunteers on this forum, that you want advice from, get a cut of the profits ?
Software is Copyrighted which is more forever than a patent.
I'm guessing that a patent would be about something other than code like a process.
Make no assumptions about my expertise, and I will try not to be amused by your ideas about microcontroller code security.
And dependencies on the core?
Arduino lets you have them. It's in the Main Site docs.
I've advised 1000's of people over the decades on various topics on many forums, in person, etc. ... I never had the gall to ask for a "cut" of their profits because:
But if anyone wants a cut, please contact me, and I'll be more than happy to provide you with the requirements and responsibility and all the legal aspects that goes with that. 
Cheers, Rob.
A Uno is a rather unlikely target platform for a leading edge killer application but I always like to hear encouraging tales about people who have made their fortune in the Arduino world.
from https://sherline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/jm_business_book.pdf
everyone should read this book, even if you have zero interest in running a business.
Should You Patent Your Ideas?
I have my name on a couple of patents that took a lot of
time and effort to get and didnât pay off. I have the basic
patent for computerized timekeeping but after getting it
I realized I didnât stand a chance in hell of defending it.
What am I going to do, sue IBM? Patent attorneys make
a living getting you patents, and what you do with it after
that is your problem. Ask your patent attorney if they
would defend your patent on a contingency and youâll
get a lot of mumbling with the end results being âno.â If
the patent they documented for you were so good youâd
think they would want a piece of the action. You should
realize that if the idea you want to patent has been written
about anyplace in the world before you applied that it
can make your patent worthless. One thing a patent can
usually do is to prevent someone with a similar patent
from going after you. A patent search shouldnât cost more
than a few hundred dollars to do and should be done to
protect yourself. Patents can now be checked using the
Internet. You canât put âpatent pendingâ on a product
unless it is actually being decided on by the patent office.
Applying for a patent will protect you and the longer it
takes for the patent department to get to it can turn into an
advantage. You get 17 years of protection once the patent
is awarded, but you will be protected upon application.
If it took five years for the patent office to get to it, you
could be covered 22 years. Please remember Iâm not an
attorney and Iâm just referring to my own experiences that
I learned from being involved with our own patents. Patent
law is changing, especially in the area of the Internet.
The U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing soft patents, and
the U.S. Patent Office is also taking a second look at how
they approve soft patents in light of the Internet. In the
age of the Internet, these patent walls are coming down
fast and furious and are becoming difficult and costly to
protect. Looking closely at old patents can be a humbling
experience when you discover how smart people were one
hundred years ago. (Reference: http://www.uspto.gov)
see also Manufacturing Overseas ( p24 )
Is that sarcasm working for you? May I recommend a more positive position on what Arduino's can do for people:
9 ways to make money from Arduino
5 steps to making money with Arduino
And many more, in fact, I have and use daily products that have Arduino boards in them and are commonly used in the industry/environment I'm targeting.
But in my case this specific project is for a prototype being provided to investors to use/test and the protection is to prevent them (investors) trying to quickly reverse engineer and then cut me out (NDAs or not). Short period deterrent prior to moving the electronics away from Arduino and into production grade PCB.
Anyway, some (certainly not all) of the responses here have been great and I appreciate them.
Other comments seem to be from people carrying a lot of personal baggage and/or pessimism and/or odd ideas of how the real world works.
Cheers, Rob.
right now arduino is apparently a good way to talk about property and ownership.
hands up who likes making things. alright, the rest of you, stay here, and talk about this with mr. moneybags.
free west papua. the cepstrum is derived by taking the fourier transform of the log10'ed mag bins eg. fft(log10(fft)). have a nice day.
As others have pointed out, if you're asking that problem, your code probably has a value very close to zero to a skilled aversary, and code of negative value to an adversary is not rare.
How effective code protection measures are depends on the sophistication of the adversary and the degree of his motivation to get your code (and also how many examples of it he can get, since some of the more advanced methods would involve dissolving the case off and then attacking the die directly.
The usual methods used are to glitch the clock and voltage while attempting to manipulate it in some specific ways (that part I don't know anything of). I do know:
*that indicates you do want to use BOD.
Beyond that it's spy vs spy shit of making it harder than it needs to be for them. Programming pins on a QFN (surrounded by hard to remove, taller components can be tied to the ground rail through the center pad (program before mounting chip). Self destruct mechanisms to scribble onto the flash if someone attempts to break in, so they get to the end and find that the flash, in hex got overwritten with 0x2BAD2BAD repeatedly in every important location.. But realistically if he really wants it, you should assume your code can be stolen by bypassing the lockbits
but that someone doing so would probably be paying hundreds to thousands of dollars to a specialist to break in or maybe more, I have no idea how much it costs for which chips, You could probably even find a price list online though/, you can just make it more unpleasant and raise that fee as a result. Butcode people write and upload to arduino unos typically is worth $0 on a good day and almost never more than a a tenner, so it's not worth stealing 
Now, the code someone who designed their own board, and which does an exotic and important task with highly original and complex code? that might be a target, if there is major commercial value to ir or some government actor in the first or second world (particularly one that's known to be aggressive that way, notably US, Russia, China, or Israel) . It should be obvious, but you never want to have national intelligence organizations investigating you and trying to steal your code - they'll get it if they care enough, and they're not very kind or forgiving....