Turning Ideas into Valuable Intellectual Property

We all work in a fiercely competitive world and every valuable idea, concept or business model should be carefully shepherded from that first drawing on a napkin to a refined product marketing strategy.

Ideas are cheap, turning them into a viable product requires articulation of the concept, coupled with tactical execution and a dose of legal documentation and registration.

How Does an Idea Become Intellectual Property?

That first generation idea you mapped out on a menu, tabletop or your iPad becomes "intellectual property" if its a design, manuscript, business name, an invention of some type and/or considered confidential information.

Shepherding your idea from a 1.0 roughed out "idea" to IP (intellectual property) occurs when you claim it as something you own legally via a formal and legal registration process, which is determined by your location.

Beauty is at first always in they eyes of the beholder and some times founders with vision will have to do a lot of convincing and converting for "idea gestation."

That's why founders get the glory and big bucks in some but not all cases.

If you make the decision with other founders that IP protection is worth the time and investment, there are basic rules and precepts you should be aware of to formally protect your business brand.

Front-end work and investment of time and resources may preclude a great deal of problems later on.

It’s a funny world, once large amounts of money are even remotely on the horizon the long knives come out. See: Machiavelli.

Leverage your network for a reference to a good patent attorney.

Don't walk in cold to the meeting, do some front end preparation prior to the first meeting; i.e. provide the attorney with any materials you've created, outline where you think the business will go in a product marketing context (local, national, international focus) and provide a short list of competitors.

Google the "Loose Lips Sink Ships" Tagline from WWII?  Well, it may be as old as dirt, but it still has value.

Don't talk about what you are doing to anyone other than close friends and family. "Close" means: “bulletproof” BTW.

As earlier, ideas are cheap and some with more resources can/will steal an idea or clone it in some funky manner and confuse the market, which is not a good thing.

Remember, people do strange things for love and money.   Reference: the human condition.

Nothing wrong with being a cynical exec or brand when you’re mapping out your core product functionality in the early stages, or any stage for that matter.

To NDA or Not: Many VCs or investment bankers won’t sign them, nor will some subset of the population.

But, a signed NDA issued to all founders and early hires is a good idea and can save you a lot of heartache and money later.

Get Geeky with Your Idea:

• Grok this: "the devil is in the details" try to come up with detailed drawings, descriptions and plans even if they are funky looking and don't forget to date them. This may be important later.
• Trademarks if “doable” are always a good thing.
• Once you have a business name, logo and/or product/service name then trademark all and make sure you utilize the appropriate copyright symbols on all marketing materials, as this enhances their enforceability.
• To Patent or Not: filing for patents is expensive, that's a relative term) ranging from $15-150K depending on the firm, process and complexity of your patent filing.
  
  Public free web resources are a great place to start your patent research.
• Later, once you have some time invested in the process you may want to use fee based research tools.
• The United States Patent and Trademark Office and Google's Patent Search Engine can be useful for front-end research.

How to Drive IP Competitive Advantage

In this post Facebook and Twitter world, patents today are not as important as they once were. As an example, both of these mega successful brands were "thin" on tangible patentable IP early on; but, each aggressively patented as much as they could, once resources were not an issue.

But, if your start-up starts to scale quickly like Uber or Tinder, you want to plan for success and IP assets will drive higher valuations downstream. Spend time and resources to get formal IP infrastructure (think: competitive barriers) in place.

• NDAs are a critical component to Patent filing. But, as earlier, some "issues" in terms of who will sign and enforcement later, necessitating legal fees.
• Patents send a signal to the market that you are serious and have assets.
• Leverage costs by hiring a law firm out of your area: attorney fees in San Francisco or Seattle are much higher than in more remote areas.
• Get patent and trademark smart with your team: immerse yourselves in the process and details so you are knowledgeable.
• Do an asset analysis to understand what can be copyrighted or trademarked.
• You have a 12 month window when you file a patent; don't let this time frame slip.
• Know patent protection is not global in scope: competitors in China and Europe don't adhere to U.S. laws.
• Future proof your business by investing in strategic and tactical marketing that drives brand awareness. Patents by themselves with no reinforcement are not as strong as those that have aggressively marketed.

Key Marketing Strategy Takeaways

I don't think anyone (self included) can articulate a clear strategy for intellectual property best practices.

Your resources, type of company, size of team, BOD members, where you are in terms of "stage" (early or more mature) all help to define what activity and timeline you need to utilize.

But, in the vast majority of the cases, you will drive competitive advantage by leveraging intellectual property with formal filings and structure.

But, again, keep some powder dry for tactical marketing, which is an integral part of any IP development - all of the IP development in the world will do little for you if you have no brand awareness.