If you’ve ever asked this question then you probably got one or more of the following as answers · It’s really difficult to say · It depends on what countries you protect in · To get an application on file costs around £6 or £7k but then there are other…

Intellectual property is an incredibly complex area of the law and, if you’re a leader of a tech business, then you’re going to need support at some stage if you want to get it right. But budgets are always tight and there are lots of things demanding money. …

Has there ever been a better illustration of how hi-tech SMEs bounce off the IP services sector than software business? For too long they have been told that IP doesn’t really work for them. That they can’t get patents so that’s that. And so many of these businesses (businesses that…

If you don’t have internal IP expertise in your business then you’re probably not paying proper attention to freedom to operate (or FTO) and that will be exposing your business to significant risk. …

If you think having a patent means you can commercially exploit your invention, you’re leaving your business open to massive risk. This blog post explains why and how you manage the situation. One of the points of confusion I encounter most often with leaders of tech SMEs is the difference…

If you’re in a tech business and you’d like a smoother way to have patent applications drafted, you should spell a few things out to your patent attorney. Giving your attorney the information they need from the outset will make everything more efficient, make sure you get better value and…

Your engineers are coming up with stacks of inventions all of the time. I guarantee it. And I could come into your business today and find a dozen things that you could get a patent for. But just because you could get a patent for them, doesn’t mean you should…

Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) seem like a good idea, but if you’re not managing them properly, they can blow up in your face. Signing an NDA and not taking the appropriate subsequent steps in your business can leave you open to legal action from the other party to the agreement. …

When it comes to pricing, the legal sector is stuck in the dark ages, especially patent attorneys. Almost all patent attorneys bill their clients by the hour for the time they spend on a job. It’s bad for clients, bad for attorneys and (most surprisingly), bad for the firms. Let’s…