A Tool for Intellectual Property Hygiene for Medical Startups

Intellectual Property (IP) can easily get damaged due to lack of understanding, attention and or awareness. A common example is untimely publication which can prevent a company form getting the patent protection it needs.

Another example is being on the watch for when a certain idea is advanced enough for discussing with an IP professional, to potentially provide value for the company.
Patents and other types of IP commonly do not require daily attention, which is why many entrepreneurs do not give them enough attention, with potentially disastrous consequences.
Surprisingly, there are some simple steps that can be taken to help avoid these, and other, potentially damaging situations.
This presentation will highlight several typical IP-hygiene problems and ways to avoid them. We will introduce a simple tool that can be self-administered, takes up only 20 minutes a week and can help avoid many IP pitfalls as well as set a more organized agenda for handling existing IP and generating new IP. The tool which will be presented has two parts: a general section and a company-specific section. The company-specific section will present calibration of the tool according to an expected path of a company. We will present as an example a calibrated version of the tool.