Intellectual Property

Of course you have a plan for your business. You also need an intellectual property strategy that supports it. It is never too early in the life of a company to consider how to make the most of your intellectual property assets.

Intellectual property (IP) is a crucial asset of almost every company. As an entrepreneur you need to create an intellectual property strategy that supports your business plan and evolves along with it. Here, you’ll learn about the various forms of IP and how you can develop an IP strategy that includes a good offense (gathering, recording, and protecting IP) and a good defense (guarding against infringement of others’ IP). It is never too early in the life of a company to create an IP-conscious environment that exploits IP assets and resources for competitive advantage.

Transcript

In the early part of my career I was an in‑house patent attorney at Ford Motor Company. It was an excellent opportunity for a broad range of training and experience in intellectual property law. My practice now involves advising clients on intellectual property issues. That includes patent strategy for protecting new products and for protecting new technologies.

My name is Peter McDermott. I’m a patent lawyer in the Boston office of Banner & Witcoff. Being a patent attorney is just great. It gives you an opportunity to come in when most of the hard work has been done. A lot of the technology has already been developed. You get to come in and enjoy the results of that hard, hard work. And to help them then turn that hard work into a product in the marketplace. That’s exciting. I’ve been fortunate. I’ve been able to work with companies from Fortune 500 to the smallest startup. And I have been fortunate I think and privileged, most patent lawyers feel to be able to help companies in our small way contribute to the their bringing forward into the marketplace new products, new technologies. It’s been rewarding and it’s been fun.