Are you starting a new company or business venture? Launching an
exciting new product or expanding into a new business line?
Congratulations. Just remember, if you wind up with a high-growth
opportunity, it can often pay big dividends to lay the legal
groundwork up front, even on ancillary or non-product/market issues
that may seem minor at the outset. Here are several key questions
about intellectual property (IP) issues that every founder,
entrepreneur or business leader should be asking from the
beginning.
I. How have you already turned your good ideas into a potential
business advantage?
The basic idea of an IP strategy is to make sure you take all
the good ideas of your new venture and translate them into
something – product, methods, brands, content, code –
that can provide a material business advantage and that can be
protected in a meaningful way. Doing this early and intentionally
can pave the way to leverage additional development runway,
