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Intellectual Property Due Diligence
Best Intellectual Property (IP) Due Diligence Agency
When we’re representing companies or investors pursuing transactions involving IP, we take a thorough, aggressive approach to IP due diligence. Our legal team works closely with you to ensure the foundation of your IP is built on solid wares.
Intellectual Property Due Diligence
As one of the most valuable building blocks of a startup, intellectual property (IP) can be your most prized asset. When you’re creating new technologies, special branding, or market-leading products, protecting your IP and making sure it’s fully compliant is essential. At My Startup Lawyer, we conduct comprehensive IP due diligence to ensure your intellectual property is safe and ready to grow with your business.
Why IP Due Diligence Matters
IP due diligence is a rigorous process designed to assess whether your IP rights are owned, valid and enforceable. The information obtained during this process will be crucial when seeking investment, entering into a merger, or licensing out a technology. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your IP portfolio and how good your position is can help to shape your negotiation and your business strategy.
As your business competes for the attention of investors, partners, and acquirers, your IP portfolio may be subject to closer scrutiny than ever. Without thorough due diligence, your business could run into problems: disputes over the ownership of your IP, invalid or misleading claims to your IP, or even expensive and time-consuming litigation. Done well, an IP due diligence program will instill confidence that your IP assets are safely secured and poised to add maximum value.
Our Approach to IP Due Diligence
Assess IP Ownership
Strong IP portfolios always start with ownership that is clean and uncontested. When we start our due-diligence work for you, everything begins with a detailed review of all documents and agreements pertaining to your IP. This includes looking at the chain of title and assignments and transfers of rights, so you have clear legal title to your startup’s IP assets.
There will be situations where there has been prior employment or where there has been a collaboration with a third party or where it is not clear in the contract that ownership might lie elsewhere. We can help to determine and defend your ownership rights at an early stage, preventing future disputes that might jeopardize your IP rights.
Also, we evaluate whether your employees, contractors, and collaborators are granted restricted rights over the IP they helped create for your startup. Otherwise, it may be vulnerable to claims of co-ownership or use without permission, which can undermine your IP position.
Evaluate IP Validity
You can have the strongest IP portfolio in the world, but it’s all for nothing if you can’t enforce your IP rights. We examine the actual validity of your IP by reviewing the record of your patents, trademarks, copyrights, and all other forms of protection that your start-up has achieved. This includes determining whether all of the required filings have been made and whether any protection has lapsed.
We apply the same analysis to your IP portfolio as a whole in the context of IP law more broadly – does your IP have any enemies? For patents, this might mean evaluating whether your inventions are novel and non-obvious; for trademarks, we might look at how distinctive your brand elements are and whether you’re infringing on other existing brands.
Addressing these issues early in the patent application process can allow you to strengthen your IP portfolio and reduce the possibility of expensive litigation or invalidation down the road.
Review Contracts and Agreements
Contracts and agreements are the foundation of your IP strategy, laying out the terms for use, ownership and transfer of IP. We will review all your contracts for IP to make sure they provide full protection and are legally enforceable.
This includes reviewing licence agreements to ensure that you are granting the right types of rights without surrendering control over the IP; and reviewing non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to ensure that they have sufficient protections in place to prohibit disclosure or use of your confidential information by others.
Employee contracts are another critical area of focus. We ensure that these agreements include clear IP assignment clauses, which transfer any IP created by employees during their tenure at your startup to the company. This prevents future disputes and reinforces your ownership of key assets.
Identify Potential Risks
With the ever-evolving nature of IP law, risks may crop up as a result of third-party claims, litigation – current or ongoing – and other regulations. We conduct a thorough risk analysis to find out what kind of jeopardy your IP is exposed to.
We look at your competitive landscape to identify potential infringement claims against your IP. This includes freedom-to-operate searches, which seek to determine whether your IP infringes upon others’ existing rights, and an assessment of any prior or pending litigation involving your IP to determine the risks and potential outcomes.
Furthermore, we examine the feasibility of enforcing your IP in multiple jurisdictions, which is relevant if your startup is (or plans to be) active in a number of countries or regions – this can help you anticipate and minimize the risk of cross-border IP issues.
Advise on IP Strategy
In addition to identifying your risk areas and assessing the robustness of your IP, we advise on strategy for optimizing your IP portfolio. Drawing on the output of our search, we make recommendations for improving your IP protection; filling gaps; and using your IP to support your commercial strategy and agenda.
For example, we may recommend that you file additional patents or trademarks to cover new developments or market segments. We can also advise you about a licensing strategy that will generate the highest royalties while maintaining the greatest degree of control over your IP. We advise on strategies for enforcing your IP rights, which might involve monitoring for infringements and taking legal action where appropriate.
We seek to arm you with an agile IP strategy that protects your assets and helps push your startup towards success.
Tailored Solutions for Startups
We know that no two startups are the same. Whether it’s a venture exploiting a niche in the software space or a brand seeking to protect trademarks and designs, our expert IP due diligence services are tailored to your specific needs.
Whether you’re overwhelmed by intellectual property or merely a little confused by it, My Startup Lawyer should provide the tools you need to feel confident that your IP is in good hands. We help startups get the most value out of their IP through a proactive, thorough approach to IP due diligence.
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Office
14850 Quorum Drive, Suite 210, Dallas, TX 75254
Contact
info@mystartuplawyer.com
Open Hours
Monday-Friday 08:00 AM to 05:00 PM