Week Four: Forming a company

When it comes time to make it official, be careful! When you’re forming your company, some of the most easily avoidable intellectual property mistakes are often made.

This week, we’ll cover how to make sure your startup owns the intellectual property in its product or service. This includes:

• Getting the correct documents in place to assign rights from the individuals to the company.
• Considering how a worker’s past or coexisting employment relationships may conflict with the rights.
• Choosing company and product names that don’t infringe a third party’s trademark rights.

Watch the Live Q&A

Tune in August 7 at 1-2 P.M. EST to get your questions answered and to ask more:

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Videos to watch this week

The Experts

Anna Heinl from Brook Kushman

Things to consider

Have questions? Ask them! We’ll cover questions posted here in our live chat. Some specifics to think about might be:

• How do I handle someone that worked on the technology but is not going to be part of a startup I am forming?
• What should I be worried about if one of my co-founders is moonlighting while working for another company?
• I’ve searched the U.S. Government’s trademark database and no one else has trademarked the company name I want to use, does that mean I’m free to use the name?
• I’m basing my startup company on a project that originated from a “startup weekend” — are there any intellectual property problems I should be aware of?