What should we prepare for in terms of IP before talking to an investor?

knowing the potential hurdles and being prepared to answer to them can help you defend your IP - www.inventionevaluator.com offers objective landscape analysis of your IP in three critical areas

One question they will probably ask or want to know about is how you are going about protecting your IP? So, if your IP is patent oriented, you can at least file a provisional patent application - it is relatively inexpensive for the USPTO filing fee, but ensure that the disclosure is as complete, accurate, and thorough as you can make it because it will serve for your later-filed non-provisional or PCT patent application. A provisional application is never examined and will never lead to a patent in and of itself - but if the disclosure is complete, accurate, and thorough, it will serve as priority for the later-filed application and so you will get a filing date and priority as early as you can possibly put together and file the application. Investors/VCs like that. If your IP is TM oriented, do the same thing - start the TM registration process. Consult a patent and/or trademark attorney.

This question is like how long is a piece of string ... it depends on your sector, business strategy and commercialisation pathway. Generally worldwide patents is expensive (there are time constraints), trademarks are mostly straight-forward, and copyright a matter of documentation. Depending on the stage of the company, the due-dilligence may reveal what they think needs to be secured to an adequate level of the amount invested.

Some off-cuff observation might be you tell them did X in core markets of Y but if given Z $$$ can do XYZ to show them you know what needs to be done but also careful with what is spent so far. If you can't relate IP strategy to business (should have been trashed out early) then you are in more serious trouble than you realise (eg may be barred by statute from patenting).

It is important to put yourself in the investors shoes and the question you need to ask yourself is 'if I was an investor then what regarding IP do I need to know from this start-up?'
You would come to further questions like
1. Is there an IP strategy which is focussing on all IP rights (patents, TM, Copyrights, Design Patents, Trade secrets)
2. Has the start-up prepared a concise IP Due diligence report (this would provide a quick summary of existing IP)
3. Does the start-up have a IP plan for the future with regard to specific IP rights if any existing already (i.e. patent already filed in US, we see a market in China, hence we would need to file the patent in China)
4. Most importantly, does the start-up expect the VC to pay for future costs for protecting and enforcing IP, if yes what would be the costs involved?