How do we determine our legal risk regarding IP?

Your risk regarding IP is also directly related to your ability to raise capital with VC's so in many respects, the answers to your questions involves BOTH corporate and securities law on the one hand and IP law, especially patent law, on the other hand. Your investors will want to know how much IP you may have that can be an asset and determine a potential revenue for now into the future. They will need to know that you have the ability to prevent competitors from copying your products. So, Your technology and products will need to embody intellectual property, be it patents, trade secrets, copyrights, or trademarks, that are perceived to be valuable. A qualified IP attorney can assist you in obtaining and procuring these rights on an international basis. The risk that someone may attempt to infringe or violate your IP will depend on how strong your competitors may be and how good your IP will be once you obtain it. Finally, Your investors and you will need to make some decisions about how much enforcement of your rights will be required to protect the niche you carve out of your market. Depending on how big of a market niche you create, you may want more sophisticated analysis such as IP landscape or other type analysis from an IP professional if the cost is worth it.

On the flip side, you will also want to know that your products and services do not infringe the rights of third party patents, trademarks, and copyrights. You can hire an IP and/or patent attorney to perform clearance searches and infringement analysis to help you assess your risk of infringement.

If all of this is sounding expensive, it is. You should budget all of this to better determine how much capital is required before you go to market? Can you bootstrap much of this and go to market without all of these costs? Sure, but each thing you forego may affect the amount of risk involved. In the end, you will need to balance the legal risks with the business risks and make some decisions. Sort of like buying business insurance. You never really know how much you need exactly but you always know that more is better than less. Good luck!