In business, there are numerous opportunities for pitfalls, mistakes and errors and they come up in all different legal areas – from basic formation issues to labor and employment to intellectual property. Mistakes and missteps involving intellectual property can be particularly problematic because IP is a company asset; it constitutes a part of (often a significant part of) a company’s valuation. In my 20 years working with start-up companies – and even fully grown-up companies, I have seen mistakes involving company intellectual property prove to be disastrous. With careful planning and good counsel, these mistakes are completely avoidable.

#1. Failure To Transfer the IP From The Founder Into the Company. It is a foundational item for any company – if the company is being formed around a piece of IP or if a piece of IP is intended for use by a company, the company should make sure the founder that owns the IP must contribute it to the company. While a very basic issue, this problem plagues more start-ups than you can imagine. Most often it happens during the informal, pre-formation time frame when founders are kicking around an idea and developing code and no one has consulted a lawyer. Conflict between the founders develop and there is a divergence of opinion on the value brought to the table by the non-developer founders; the developers decide to split with the IP and form a new company. While this will likely generate lawsuits just as soon as the developer’s company is in a financing round, the non-developer founders will very likely not receive as much as they would have had the IP been properly assigned to the company.Continue Reading Five IP Pitfalls That Start-Up (and Grown Up) Companies Can Easily Avoid