

Do you patent? - erikstarck

How common is it for HN-reading startups to think about patenting their ideas? What's the view on patents amongst the VC-crowd of Silicon Valley? Any thoughts/experiences?
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mixmax
I've done two startups where I took out a patent. My experience is that the
only people that will ever look at your patent is your VC, and he'll only
glance over it.

It's a lot of work that could be spent productively doing something else, so
I've stopped patenting stuff. I think it just isn't worth it.

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RiderOfGiraffes
I'm not in Silicon Valley, I run two companies, neither is a start-up. Neither
company uses patents.

We prefer to have things as "commercial secrets" and make them sufficiently
obscure that by the time someone reverse engineers them either we have an
improvement in place, or we have enough of the market that it's not worth
their effort to go through implementation.

If you go the patent route then you have to have effectively full disclosure.
To enforce your patent you have to detect infringement, issue "Cease and
Desist" orders, then pursue through the courts. If the person infringing is in
another country then the only benefactors will be the lawyers. Anyone who
infringes will make money, then disappear.

That's for my fields, and YMMV. The only people who have ever cared about
patents are those who have money to invest, and don't actually understand the
business. They want to see their investment protected, and think patents will
do it.

There is now one exception to this, and that's for an innovation that we think
can't subsequently be upgraded. You need to follow through the decision tree,
with assigned probabilities, and the outcomes. Basically, do some Game Theory.

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lacker
_If you go the patent route then you have to have effectively full
disclosure._

In practice when big companies file patents they make sure to leave out enough
information to make the patents as unhelpful as possible. If you were trying
to replicate my work it would be pretty close to useless to use my patents.

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movix
We decided to keep our project in stealth for the last two years until we had
our patent filed. We thought that this plan suited our project as we have
unique IP with hardly any conflicts in the patent searches. This path has
meant it's taken more time to get to the point of having a demo, which is
crucial of course, but means that all IP elements of our project are protected
before we go live. I think in the end, it comes down to - can you afford to
fight any infringement of your patent should someone try a similar product.

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erikstarck
Thanks everyone for the replies. I agree, this is an interesting discussion.
It seems like patents are such a thing that many people who's not
entrepreneurs (including VCs) assume you have to do but very few question why.
It's like "oh, you have a startup in high-tech, must have a patent, then?".

I would guess the general opinion in the HN-crowd is that ideas are worthless
and that execution counts. Well, patents are "just" ideas. So, are they
worthless? If so, why does everyone keep asking about them?

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abdels
This is an interesting discussion. We're working on a startup and patenting is
something a lot of people with a traditional business view keep asking us.

I love open source and patenting doesn't sit well with me. The idea of
a'commercial secret' is more appealing because IMHO its more about competition
and as a startup you can always out innovate your competitors.

