LeastTrust IT

IP Risk Advisory

Don’t let ex-employees walk out the door with your company created assets. It happens too often.

Intellectual Property (IP), similar to cybersecurity, are risk management activities that are striving to maximize the value of your company assets by exploiting opportunities and managing risks.  We can help your team whiteboard and discover risks and build a viable IP lifecycle and/or risk management program. We can assist in creating a IP or trade secret catalog (opportunity ledgers) and/or the risk register (risks to the company) 

Due Diligence
Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property Strategy

Startups both need a strategy to retain IP, know how, and their competitive edge. We can help create a strategy that includes, policies, procedures, and enforcement using our security tools. 

Claude Flow Chart Decision Tree – Patent, Trade Secret or Public Disclosure (Note these decision points need to be weighted accordingly for cost, chances of strong patent enforcement, and more)

https://claude.site/artifacts/165c6550-3be1-49fa-af1d-79f406c799a2

LeastTrust Blueprint to IP Assessments

LeastTrust IP Assessment

 

 

Trade Secrets

A trade secrets program creates structure and formalizes intangible assets (Customer lists, brand, know-how, technology trade secrets, novel architecture, efficiencies, and more). A trade secrets program creates culture, installs “carrots and sticks”, and creates documented assets.  We are not attorneys, but we can recommend lawyers that specialize in crucial document creation such as: NDAs, employee contracts, & confidentiality agreements. Just because New York’s non-competes are weakening, does not mean employees should not have confidentiality obligations. 

Why Trade Secrets offer the most benefit in todays legal environment. The burden of proof is lower and the global reach is extensive. Here are two great articles

https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/the-proliferation-of-trade-secret-8547870/

https://www.tradesecretslawblog.com/2024/11/companies-should-take-notice-of-the-extraterritorial-reach-of-u-s-trade-secret-law/#more-2325

 

Trade secrets strategy

Patents may not perform as intended

Our team has decades of experience and patents are typically not what was initialed promised. We have the data to and lack the conflict of interest to patent. We do not need to deeply understand your technology just your intentions and context. We can inform with history and identify the obvious pitfalls, conflicts of interest, and current patent enforcement environment while also explaining the pros and cons of public disclosures and trade secret strategies. We have experience collaborating with patent prosecutors to best protect IP that is not patentable (BTW the lions share of your intangible assets and proprietary advantages) .

That being said, edge cases (pharma, medical device, semiconductor, and standard essential patents) may be fitting for a patent. 

Patents are Dead

IP Strategy and Cybersecurity are merging.

Security tools are well positioned to enforce policy and provide real time insights. Talk to Inquisitive IT about how we can help your organization build a world class IT, Risk, and IP program. Current technologies exist to classify data, track data,  manage data access, and alert on the movement and editing of data. Just like privacy data (compliance regulated data) your company should understand:

Where is my data?

Who has access to it?

Is that container secure?

Large company advisory at SMB rates

Give us a call. We would love to learn more about your goals.