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  • At what point should we stop offering equity as part of compensation?
    Employment At my startup there is another co-founder and a few employees, all of whom have some amount of equity in the company. At what point (if ever) in my...
    Answers: 1 Views: 2079 Likes: 1 United States
  • Can we reserve a trademark for our product?
    Trademark We are developing our MVP right now and would like to know if there's a way to reserve the trademark rights. As the product is not launched yet and...
    Answers: 1 Views: 2484 Likes: 4 United States
  • Registering our startup business
    Business formation Hello, we are a technology startup based in New York. We have not yet registered our company. What exactly is the procedure to do this? Should we r...
    Answers: 1 Views: 2382 Likes: 3 United States
  • Can we use other fitness brands for our app?
    Trademark We are creating a personal fitness app which interfaces with wearables. We have developed one wearable device prototype ourselves, but the all majo...
    Answers: 1 Views: 2049 Likes: 2 United States
  • What happens to my IP rights when a startup is founded to commercialize it?
    Patents 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 tha...
    Answers: 1 Views: 2673 Likes: 6 United States
  • Who is authorized to sign an NDA?
    Contracts We sent an NDA to a party and it was returned signed by their sales agent who we had been talking to. Should we insist on it being signed by a some...
    Answers: 1 Views: 2212 Likes: 1 United States
  • NDA for hiring contractors
    Contracts We want to expand our team and hire a team of developers as contractors. We would like to protect our IP and other company information. For an NDA,...
    Answers: 1 Views: 2081 Likes: 2 United States
  • Trademark Statement of Use
    Trademark I have filed for a trademark with USPTO and successfully got the Notice of Allowance on four categories. I have asked for a few products and ser...
    Answers: 1 Views: 2305 Likes: 7 United States
  • How do so many startups register domain names similar to existing businesses?
    Trademark It seems like many startups are using names that sounds similar to existing companies or brands, but with a .co or .ly domain name. I'd like to kno...
    Answers: 1 Views: 2167 Likes: 5 United States
  • If one founder contributes the IP, should this be reflected in his shares?
    Business formation We want to found a startup with two co-founders. The other co-founder mainly brings technology to the table. He has been working on a software prod...
    Answers: 1 Views: 2106 Likes: 6 United States