Lawyers will tell you it’s important to incorporate your company as soon as you possibly can to avoid personal liability and to settle all outstanding matters among the founders. That’s good advice, but the place to start is with a Term Sheet for the incorporation.
After raising a significant amount of cash from VC investors, it is time to do a top-to-bottom review of your company’s intellectual property (IP) portfolio. To get started, here’s an overview of the four main types of IP: Patents protect rights regarding inventions and discoveries, such as […]
Should you file a patent application or keep your innovation a trade secret? This question is routinely asked by key decision makers, such as inventors, managers, and legal counsel, when evaluating a new invention. While either choice comes with its own set of advantages and trade-offs, an […]
Startups have a long to-do list, and it can be tempting to put off tackling important work around branding until just before launch. Don’t push the pause button on branding considerations. Strategizing around branding in the early days of your business pays dividends. Your branding goal is […]
Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) have taken major steps forward this year with the groundbreaking launch of Pokémon GO in July 2016 and the release of several VR headsets. As the startup world convenes in San Francisco this week at TechCrunch Disrupt 2016, Perkins Coie […]
For entrepreneurs operating in innovation-driven marketplaces, protection of intellectual property is of foremost concern. Accordingly, startups should require each employee and independent contractor they engage to enter into a Proprietary Information and Inventions Agreement. While agreements of this nature go by several different names (e.g., Confidential Information […]
Patents are important to startups because they provide a legally sanctioned monopoly that bars entry to competitors. In addition, patents may serve defensive purposes in that competitors may be less likely to sue a startup for patent infringement if there is a risk of a countersuit. Further, […]
A couple of months ago, we gave you five privacy tips relevant to startups and told you about the consequences startups face from regulators if they fail to protect their users’ privacy. Regulators like the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Consumer Financial […]
Startups have bigger concerns than privacy, or so they think. Many startups have learned that being young and small does not keep them off the radar screens of privacy regulators, and they can be vulnerable to costly investigations. Privacy issues that come to light in the course […]
A nondisclosure agreement (or “NDA”) is a contract illustrating how confidential information will be shared and protected by two or more parties.
