20Fathoms Talk: Currency Before Your Capital

By: Josh Sloat

Illustration: Declan Wrede

20Fathoms Know Your Worth: Intellectual Property

Join us for lunch at 20Fathoms on October 11th when we'll explore how to leverage patents as one of your startup's earliest and most important assets. When you're first starting out, you don’t have customers, you don’t have revenue, and you probably don’t have physical assets. What you do have are your intellectual assets. These fruits and labors of the mind are not just defensive tools for protection, but chips you can leverage on that glorious path to investment, physical assets, customers, and revenue. Constitutionally enshrined property rights like patents and copyrights allow you to define ownership boundaries around your inventions and creative works, much like the title for your home defines the boundaries of your physical property. And just like your physical property, your intellectual property can be used as leverage, transferred, sold, and leased. And at the earliest stages, these IP assets can get you access to the venture capital you need to scale or to build the bridge from intellectual to real capital and from the garage to the marketplace. 

You'll learn about how to protect these key business assets while avoiding common mistakes in the context of an overall IP strategy in this lunch-and-learn presented by intellectual property expert, Dr. Ashley Sloat. We'll be covering intellectual property like trade secrets, trademarks, copyrights, and patents, as well as how open-source IP should be treated. We'll also touch on responsible engagement with employees and vendors, especially around contracting, and typical mistakes made with IP.

This event is hosted by 20Fathoms in partnership with Aurora Patents. This is an in-person event, and there is no charge to attend. Lunch will be provided.

Date and Time: Wednesday, October 11 · 11:30am - 1pm EDT
Location: 20Fathoms | 10850 East Traverse Highway #Ste, 4400 Traverse City, MI 49684
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Register