The IP laws for this are going to get very niche and confusing.

• Patents cannot be an equation or a fact. Once you publish it you cannot lock it away and prevent people using it.

• Copyright does not protect a fact, which would be the equation itself. For instance, you cannot copyright a cooking recipe of 1 cup flour, 2 cups sugar, etc. However, you can copyright a page of a book. That includes the font, typesetting, arrangement. So you can copyright a recipe book, copyright a page of a recipe, copyright the text instructions, but not copyright the weights and measure in the recipe.

• Copyright can protect a logo or an image. For instance, you could create a company with the Pythagorean theorem as the name, then have a graphic designer create a logo for you. Anyone can still use the formula, but they can't use to name another company or product, and they have restrictions on how they write it on things.

• Trade secret or national security restriction on an equation. You write it down on internal company documents, then everyone who reads it must sign a NDA. If any of those people reveal the equation to the outside world, you can sue that person for damages. If it's a government secret you can even put someone in prison, in some cases, pre-preemptively before they release the secret.