Does Your Startup Have a Strategic IP Plan?

July 26, 2011

Everyday we see entrepreneurs struggling to prioritize time, money and resources. Unfortunately, many postpone dealing with complex, icky legal issues.  And few have a strategic IP plan.
A lack of legal strategy, however, can cost your company big bucks down the road and may even obliterate it.
Picking the wrong type of legal entity for investment [...]

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IP Class for Women Entrepreneurs Building Scalable Companies

July 22, 2011

Some economists estimate that 75% of a scalable company’s value is based on its intellectual property.  Without legal protection, the company’s public IP could be freely used — even by competitors.  Obviously, investors care about the scope and quality of a company’s IP protection before they invest.
Consequently, intellectual property protection is the linchpin of a [...]

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Why A Strong Patent Application Should Be Your Startup’s First Investment

July 18, 2011

Nearly every business model has a core technology.  Your core technology may be a consumer item such as a back scrubber for the elderly, or it may be an online game, a smart phone or web application, or new plant variety, a pharmaceutical, or a better bra.  Whatever your core technology, the first thing you [...]

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Why Scalable Companies Should Use Fanciful or Arbitrary Brand Names

July 14, 2011

In my last post, I discussed why scalable companies shouldn’t use generic or descriptive brand names that can’t be trademarks.
Today’s post discusses the alternative types of names that may be protected by federal trademark law:  suggestive, fanciful or arbitrary names
Mark strength in descending order from weak to strong:

generic
descriptive
suggestive
fanciful or arbitrary

In contrast to generic and [...]

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Why Scalable Companies Shouldn’t Use Descriptive Names

July 13, 2011

A common misconception by many entrepreneurs is that they should use a name that describes their products or services.  Many want potential customers to immediately know what they are offering.  Some use generic names because they want to generate more website traffic from key word searches.
If you want to build a scalable, highly valuable company, [...]

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StartupRoar: A new blog aggregation site for startups

July 13, 2011

Today, Tony Kareer  and a host of startup bloggers, including Steve Blank, Ben Yoskovitz, Vinicius Vancanti and myself  are joining together to share information that will be aggregated on StartupRoar.com.  It will be a great starting place for entrepreneurs who are looking for information on wide variety of topics including Business Models, Venture Capital, Angel Investors, [...]

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Is Your Startup Based on a Scalable Business Model?

July 8, 2011

There are dozens of business models.  Some are scalable and some are not.
Scalability is critical, however, if you want to grow a big, fat successful company that is attractive to investors.
The key characteristic of a scalable business model is that the incremental cost of goods or services sold is going down over time—goods and services [...]

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Open Source Software: Restricted vs. Permissive Licenses

June 18, 2011

When developing commercial software products that incorporate any type of open source software (“OSS”), it’s important to understand the basic difference between Restrictive and Permissive OSS licenses.  OSS licenses can have dramatic implications for the value of your final product.
To understand the different types of OSS licenses, it is first important to understand the difference [...]

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Open Source Software: When Free Is Not Free

June 10, 2011

When navigating the complex legal landscape of open source software (“OSS”), it’s critical to understand that where OSS is concerned, free does not mean free.
OSS is “free” in the sense that you may use it without paying a fee.  Most importantly, however, OSS is NOT “free” of legal restrictions.  Indeed, some types of OSS licenses, [...]

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The Rewards and Risks of Using Open Source Software

June 9, 2011

Let’s face it.  In today’s fast moving technical marketplace, most software engineers want to use open source software (“OSS”).  It can provide free, quick, and easy shortcuts and dramatically cut product development cycles.
The catch is that OSS with its associated licenses can create a legal quagmire and dramatically undermine the value of the resulting product’s [...]

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