Archive for September 16th, 2008
Patents versus Trade Secrets
Startups often obtain patents to attempt to protect their intellectual property. From what I have seen, obtaining patents on core IP is considered “good housekeeping” by most VCs and startup lawyers. However, I recently saw an instance where a company decided not to file a patent on a specific piece of technology because they viewed it as a trade secret. In other words, had they filed the patent, the information could have allowed others to duplicate the functionality through alternative methods. So, they decided not to file a patent. I realize this is only one datapoint, but I wonder how often this sort of thing comes up.
