Up And Running:
It’s not that patents are bad, just that you can’t trust them to protect your business from competition. In Should I Start This Business on the bplans blog, Sabrina Parsons reflects on a recommendation to explore patents in a startup:
This is solid advice. I just want to add a caveat. Patents will not protect you. They are good to have, investors like them, but your competitors will find ways around them (if the solution is that good believe me they will.) Proving patent infringement is also a long and costly process that would most likely kill your business. So please, go ahead and get a patent, but then put a strategy in place to market the heck out of your solution — so that when someone copies it you are the true front runner with the best quality solution.
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