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• Simultaneous Discovery and its impact on stealth mode

  We’ve talked a lot about the anti-stealth movement here and on the nextNY list, and the topic has resurfaced again recently thanks to Brad Burnham’s post about the advantages of being open . I noticed that, at least anecdotally, there was a correlation between how open entrepreneurs were with us and their ultimate success. Simply put the entrepreneurs who are aggressively open in describing their plans seem to do better than the ones who are cagey. There is absolutely no data underneath this observation. It is just my sense after meeting hundreds of entrepreneurs over 15 years as a VC. If it is true, it could be for lots of reasons. The more experienced an entrepreneur, the more likely they are to understand that ideas are rarely unique, but the ability to assemble a team and execute against that idea is rare. Perhaps they are just more confident, and it is confidence that is correlated with success. But recently, I have started to think that there might be something more going... Posted Jun 08 2008, 09:49 PM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Intellectual Property, Rants, Patent, Innovation, Business, Entrepreneurship, Startup, Social Behavior, NextNY, Notches

• How is IP split between separating founders?

  AskTheVC addresses the question of what happens to IP rights when the founders go their separate ways . "Bottom line, you have a strong incentive (as does your former partner) to settle this amicably, otherwise, you both are going to be worse off." I thought it was worthwhile to dig into this a little further, though, and discuss what happens with the various IP rights a startup might acquire. Often you'll hear 3 founders say "we want everything split 3 ways", but joint ownership of IP can be tricky. Rights and duties with joint ownership are poorly misunderstood, even by many lawyers. More importantly, the rights and obligations of each owner vary by the type of intellectual property and from country to country. A joint owner of copyright in the US has different rights from a joint owner in England, and a joint owner of copyright has different rights from a joint owner of a patent. Both copyright and patent rights vest in the original author(s) or inventor(s) respectively, and both can... Posted Feb 12 2007, 06:47 PM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Intellectual Property, Copyright, Web 2.0, Patent, Business, Law, Entrepreneurship, Startup, NextNY