Intellectual Property, or “IP” is what sets your company apart from everyone else. IP includes your company’s inventions, know-how, brand, creative works, and more. You can’t touch it, but any successful founder or investor will tell you your IP makes up your most important assets. IP can be protected using patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets.

Protecting—at minimum—your core IP is essential to building a successful company. Here are three top reasons:

Investors want it. You’ve seen IP mentioned in most pitches. Nearly any investor will ask about what you’re doing to protect your IP. They know how valuable it is, and that any serious company takes care to curate their IP.

Build a defensible moat. Protected IP creates barriers to entry for competitors, whether they’re aiming to launch a competing product or simply knock off your offer. And if they do, protected IP gives you enforcement power.

Get bargaining power. IP is most useful to small companies. Contrary to notions spread by executives of large companies, IP is the bargaining chip that levels the playing field for startups and small companies to compete against those large companies.

…and more.

IP protection is accomplished using patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets. Deciding which you need can be challenging, and sometimes one thing is covered by more than one form of IP protection.

Patents protect inventions such as apparatuses, methods, and know-how.

Trademarks protect brand elements such as your name and logo.

Copyrights protect creative works, ranging from books to videos to web applications.

Trade Secrets protect methods and know-how that are valuable because they’re secret.

Lawyers are sadly known for being cryptic, hard to get an answer out of, and always saying “no.” Our approach is different.

Your business comes first. We start by getting to know your company and your needs. Then, we can tailor an IP project or even a whole-company IP strategy to fit your needs. We have even told clients to not use our services on a project because it wouldn’t serve their business.

We speak English. Lawyers often try to dazzle with legalese. The problem is that’s not always helpful. We strive to communicate with our clients in crystal clear English. Don’t worry, we can also dazzle with legalese when it helps our clients.

We’re strategy-first. IP is only valuable if it serves a business purpose. That’s why we aren’t a “job shop” and we start with strategy.

Our fee structure works. We are committed to providing total transparency in the fees we charge. We provide most of our services using our extensive published flat fee menu and our subscription for growing companies ready for day-to-day IP legal support. We only bill by the hour as a fallback.