212 - Protecting Your IP

Business Legal Lifecycle Podcast

We're talking about intellectual property today which is a pretty big topic in any business. But specifically, what we want to talk about today is the concept of having a separate legal entity for your IP. When is that a good idea? Your business can be structured any number of ways. You could be a sole trader or be a company. The problem with those entities owning intellectual property is that if you get sued or go bankrupt then any intellectual property that you own could be lost. One way to protect that IP is to have a different entity to control it. That separate entity doesn't do anything else. It just owns the intellectual property. The ideal situation would be to create that structure during the startup type phase of your business. If you do it later, it's going to be more expensive and will be more complicated. Once the separate structure is created you can then license the IP to your business. The trading entity then enters into agreements with suppliers, employees etc. But if you can’t do it at the beginning, it's never too late. You should think about doing it particularly if you've got some valuable IP.