intellectual property will be a key to success. Investors will pay particular attention to your answers to these questions:
- What key intellectual property does the company have (patents, patents pending, copyrights, trade secrets, trademarks, domain names)?
- What comfort is there that the company’s intellectual property does not violate the rights of a third party?
- How was the company’s intellectual property developed?
- Would any prior employers of a team member have a potential claim to the company’s intellectual property?
- Is the intellectual property properly owned by the company, and have all employees and consultants assigned the intellectual property over to the company?
- If the intellectual property was developed at a university or through government grants or with open source technology, how does the company have the right to use the technology?