What happens to my IP rights when a startup is founded to commercialize it?

Question

If you are given, say, 10% equity in the IP of an invention, and suppose it gets patented and is the basis for a new company, do you own 10% of that company? How does the transfer of IP to the company work?

Answers: 2 public & 0 private

Steven weinrieb
Patent Attorney

If the IP is, for example, the major asset of the new company, your 10% share may in fact be worth more because any owner of the patent rights has the right to license or assign the patent rights as he/she sees fit, independent of the other patent holders/owners provided, of course, that, as inventors, you did not assign the rights to the patent when, as is usual, the patent application was filed and before the patent issued.

25da12c4d3
Patent Attorney

Nothing, “happens to [your] IP rights when a startup is founded to commercialize it” unless you take certain steps to transfer those rights to the startup. Indeed, unless you are an inventor or co-inventor (being a co-inventor means you and the other co-inventors have equal and separable rights to the invention by default), you don’t have any rights to an invention absent those parties or their assignees granting you rights to the invention. An intellectual property asset like a patent is one of many things that go into the calculus of what a business is worth, but theoretically you could have a contractual arrangement where you receive some royalty from the commercialization of a particular invention yet have no equity or other interest in the business that is commercializing the invention. An invention, or commercialization thereof, can be the basis for the business being formed and operated, but that IP asset and the business entity are separable things. If you have been materially involved in the creation of an invention, or have been offered some compensation for that or other involvement, it would be prudent to contact a local IP attorney to evaluate exactly to what you may be entitled.

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