Posts Tagged ‘Trade Secrets’
Detectability is a Key Factor for Patent Value
Updated 16 Jan 2022. Patents Need to be Detectable. This may appear to be an obvious statement, but people pour money into patents where infringement simply cannot be detected. Here’s a case where undetectable software claims were thrown out of federal court. When looking at an invention (or an issued patent), one of the first…
Read MoreThe Patent System Eliminates Monopolies
Every Word in a Patent Hurts You – So Be Careful The patent system is a quid pro quo[1] – an exchange – where you give away trade secret[2]s and you get back some patent rights. This system has been around since well before the founding of the US and has been codified and refined…
Read MoreThe Entrepreneur and the Angel Investor – The Story of Bad IP Protection.
An angel investor will ask the entrepreneur “Do you have a patent?” The next thing the entrepreneur does is run out and gets a patent. Is this smart? Note: this excerpt is from my forthcoming book “Startup IP Strategy.” Photo by Tommaso Pecchioli on Unsplash The calculus is simple to the entrepreneur: they think a…
Read MoreAn NDA That Encourages Collaboration
BlueIron is now using the Ethical NDA in all our new engagements. The Ethical NDA is available from the Ethical Collaboration Assocation, a 501(c)3 non-profit. The conventional NDA ensures that one party to the agreement must keep the other party’s secrets. In a mutual NDA, both parties agree to the same terms. The conventional NDA…
Read MoreJoin an Accelerator – and Lose Your Intellectual Property
Companies that join accelerators, incubators, coworking spaces, CEO roundtables, etc. are at a huge risk of losing their IP – just because they participate. Most patent valuation[1][2] analysts will remove 50% or more of the value of a company’s patent just because they were in an accelerator. Lose *half* of your most valuable asset –…
Read More