Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Myths about Patents and Trademarks in startups

hitstartup.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 34 posts

Re: Myths about Patents and Trademarks in startups

#11

Post by DrAwdeOccarim »

Very software focused. In biotech, patent protection of composition of matter (and less so process) is important to ensure the ability to capture economic value of your research.

But keep in mind the safe harbor clause (Safe Harbor provision of 35 U.S.C. § 271(e)(10)) allows any other company/lab to use your compound/process "in support of submissions to the FDA". This is taken very broadly in the field to mean if you are pre-commercial you can basically use anything you want, no one will sue you because if you're starting-up, everything can be claimed to support an eventual filing. Plus, if you have no revenue a patent fight has no value to the other party.

Obviously every marketed drug has IP around it preventing generics until the patents expire. A lot of inventions that lead to commercial products are actually derived from academic institutions. The Bayh–Dole Act did absolute wonders for the US in terms of biotech innovation. Pre-Bayh-Dole, any research using federal grant money had to go through a Byzantine process to determine IP ownership with a lot typically residing with the US federal government. Post-Bayh-Dole, it simply stayed with the inventor/inventing institution. Some people now consider this bad because evil drug companies are "privatizing the gains", but without that economic payout, they wouldn't have invested to bring the invention to market to begin with.

You could argue it moved the large biopharma companies to become development/networking/marketing companies, which is a fair point, but it simply moved the innovation to universities and nimble start-ups--which is better anyway for actual disruption and more equitably spreading economic gain.

Re: Myths about Patents and Trademarks in startups

#12

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

DrAwdeOccarim wrote: post #11

Very software focused. In biotech, patent protection of composition of matter (and less so process) is important to ensure the ability to capture economic value of your research. But keep in mind the safe harbor clause (Safe Harbor provision of 35 U.S.C. § 271(e)(10)) allows any other company/lab to use your compound/process "in support of submissions to the FDA". This is taken very broadly in the field to mean if yo…

Author here.

I agree that it's more software focussed and I would be adding the role of IP in other industries in my upcoming updates.

But, the main reason I explicitly didn't go into Biotech/Pharma is because living in India which has been at the receiving end of the US Pharma's patent protections and on the other hand witness generic medicines save lives everyday; I didn't want my biases to affect the content.

Re: Myths about Patents and Trademarks in startups

#13

Post by jabart »

Trademarks help in domain name disputes. Your registered business name only applies to that state. It's not dumb to setup a trademark for your company name after it's used in commerce. For small business it's affordable as well based on the fee structure at the USPTO.

*Not a lawyer.

Re: Myths about Patents and Trademarks in startups

#14

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

Sreyanth wrote: post #8

On the contrary, the question I had while building my product was - “Am I infringing someone else’s patent?” That was years ago. Now, I focus on value creation first and let the product succeed before venturing into patent research. Hardware might be much tougher though. Would be interesting to see someone with hardware experience to share their real life experiences.

Author here.

Even patent trolls wait till you are able to pay if you infringe their 'supposed invention' i.e. In other words focussing upon growth is a rational decision, when you get big you'll know if you are in the radar of trolls or genuine inventors.

This applies only when you truly don't know whether you're infringing IP, if you're explicitly copying an invention; unless you are in a country which has no regard to international laws and actively encourages its citizens to copy inventions of other countries, you are at the risk of patent litigations.

Re: Myths about Patents and Trademarks in startups

#15

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

jabart wrote: post #13

Trademarks help in domain name disputes. Your registered business name only applies to that state. It's not dumb to setup a trademark for your company name after it's used in commerce. For small business it's affordable as well based on the fee structure at the USPTO. *Not a lawyer.

Author here.

Trademarks can also help to claim App names in Appstore[1]. But in several countries(even federal), registration/incorporating applies to all the states. Since, Appstore require DUNS which has company name, may be Apple would respect incorporation too especially if the app is country specific.

[1]https://hitstartup.com/when-to-register-our-startup/

Re: Myths about Patents and Trademarks in startups

#16

Post by DrAwdeOccarim »

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #12
DrAwdeOccarim wrote: post #11

Very software focused. In biotech, patent protection of composition of matter (and less so process) is important to ensure the ability to capture economic value of your research. But keep in mind the safe harbor clause (Safe Harbor provision of 35 U.S.C. § 271(e)(10)) allows any other company/lab to use your compound/process "in support of submissions to the FDA". This is taken very broadly in the field to mean if yo…

Author here. I agree that it's more software focussed and I would be adding the role of IP in other industries in my upcoming updates. But, the main reason I explicitly didn't go into Biotech/Pharma is because living in India which has been at the receiving end of the US Pharma's patent protections and on the other hand witness generic medicines save lives everyday; I didn't want my biases to affect the content.

Totally understandable. There is a minority of non-CS commenters on HN, so I always try to expand the conversation. Wasn't meant as pejorative.

Re your comment on generics saving lives, yea, this is a pickle question between sovereigns in negotiating trade agreements. The US pharmaceutical behemoths make too much money in my opinion. The inability of Medicare to negotiate on drug pricing was an insane give away from Bush that effectively allows drug companies the ability to set their desired profit targets. But with other nations catching up in terms of Quality and manufacturing tech transfers, most small molecules will be easily riffed. The era of blockbuster small molecules is coming to an end with a lot of the space/targets explored. More complicated biological and gene/cell therapies are the next frontier and it's going to be a lot harder to riff these technologies because "the product is the process" a lot of time. It's a lot harder to steal process without hiring know-how.

Re: Myths about Patents and Trademarks in startups

#17

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

thallukrish wrote: post #6

The article does not seem to address, should one patent a method or algorithm that defines your product as a startup before launching the product?

Author here.

From the content,

>Most countries don’t allow patent for a software[1]. Economic theories, methods of doing business, mathematical methods or computer programs as such are not patentable inventions in several countries.

The hyperlinked content from WIPO details about patentability of softwares/algorithm(Link doesn't seem to be working now, so including archive)

In short, in USA -

"According to the US Supreme Court , the Congress intended the statutory patentable subject matter to include anything under the sun made by man,” but the laws of nature, natural phenomena and abstract ideas are three specific areas which are not patentable."

So, you can apply patent for the application of that algorithm.

[1]https://web.archive.org/web/20200213051434/https://www.wipo....

Re: Myths about Patents and Trademarks in startups

#18

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

DrAwdeOccarim wrote: post #16
Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. I agree that it's more software focussed and I would be adding the role of IP in other industries in my upcoming updates. But, the main reason I explicitly didn't go into Biotech/Pharma is because living in India which has been at the receiving end of the US Pharma's patent protections and on the other hand witness generic medicines save lives everyday; I didn't want my biases to affect the content.

Totally understandable. There is a minority of non-CS commenters on HN, so I always try to expand the conversation. Wasn't meant as pejorative. Re your comment on generics saving lives, yea, this is a pickle question between sovereigns in negotiating trade agreements. The US pharmaceutical behemoths make too much money in my opinion. The inability of Medicare to negotiate on drug pricing was an insane give away from…

W.r.t India, it has mostly accepted the patent obligations of US Pharma as it gets to export generic medications to US and I think 50% of Indian generic medications get through FDA approval.

But this was pre-COVID, not sure how new found gold rush in Pharma industry worldwide would affect the future of Generic medications and patentability of pharma products. It could go either way of improving manufacturing and availability of generic medications (or) Pharma behemoths could take advantage of current situation and derail generic medicine development indefinitely.

Re: Myths about Patents and Trademarks in startups

#19

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

raverbashing wrote: post #3

> Besides, in most countries just incorporating/registering our startup as a company would prevent anyone else from using the same name for their company. So, the question is. Is it good/bad to incorporate using your product/service name as a corp. name? What are the pros and cons? (Because even if you do, your product will probably end up being called something else in the end)

Author here.

>Is it good/bad to incorporate using your product/service name as a corp. name? What are the pros and cons?

Apart from intellectual property, Unless there is a specific reason not to name our startup with our product name, it's always a good idea to have the same name for our startup as our product in terms of basic branding etiquette.

In countries where duplicate company names for the same product are not allowed, this will serve as an added protection. But it doesn't prevent someone from brandjacking by typosquatting, neither does trademark prevent it, Facebook has enough trademarks as legally possible yet it goes to the length of decloaking domain names to prevent this[2](Not showcasing this as a positive practice).

I've written more about Incorporation & App names here[1].

[1]https://hitstartup.com/when-to-register-our-startup/

[2]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23625977

Re: Myths about Patents and Trademarks in startups

#20

Post by patentatt »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #9
thallukrish wrote: post #6

The article does not seem to address, should one patent a method or algorithm that defines your product as a startup before launching the product?

If it's the "before" you're questioning ... You can't do it afterwards: USA has now aligned with the rest of the World as a first-to-file patent system. Your product, if available to the public, would be a prior art citation against your patent.

Incorrect. There is a 1-year ‘grace period’ for an inventor’s own work. And if someone ‘stole’ your idea and tried to patent it before you, there is a process to invalidate it because they derived the patent from your work.
Post reply on HN