There’s a lot of opportunity for investors in Cleveland to fund up-and-coming technology companies.
“There’s a growing sense of entrepreneurship and innovation,” says Steve Haynes, managing partner at Glengary LLC. “It has become the norm for colleges, universities, hospitals and other institutions to think about monetizing the technology developed in their facilities. They’re getting research dollars and they’re trying to convert science into something commercial. In addition to institutional technology transfer, incubators, accelerators, etc., are being formed to drive economic development.”
Patrick R. Roche, a partner at Fay Sharpe LLP, adds that there are many companies in the area looking to assist the right companies with capitalization.
“It’s very competitive — there are a lot of deals to be looked at,” he says.
While the market is fertile with both investors and entrepreneurs, Roche and Haynes say there are many things entrepreneurs fail to account for when seeking funding, including the viability and strength of their intellectual property (IP).
Smart Business spoke with Roche and Haynes about what investors look for in entrepreneurs’ IP before a deal can be done.
What does an investor look for in the IP of an entrepreneur seeking funding?
From an investor’s perspective, when an entrepreneur approaches with an idea the investor has to ask, ‘Will this idea have value in the marketplace?’ If yes, then one of the next questions is whether it can be protected, from an IP perspective. Otherwise, releasing it into the public creates a marketplace for anyone who can reproduce it. Then it becomes a marketing game, and early-stage companies don’t have the money to compete with well-capitalized competitors.
From an IP attorney’s perspective, basic due diligence dictates that a business owner or entrepreneur should present to the attorney what he or she thinks is the IP, so it can be analyzed.
It’s important to know when a patent application was filed and whether foreign rights have been preserved. The IP attorney, working on behalf of the investor, will examine in detail what the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has done with the application and conduct his or her own research to try and predict what the patent office might do with it, called a patentability study. If it’s determined the patent application has little chance of being granted, that will likely kill the deal.
Patent attorneys also are looking at whether the invention can be designed around. Can noninfringing copycat products be created that could hurt the market?
What commonly turns an investor away from a fund applicant?
At an early stage, many of the potential obstacles for investors relate to whether or not there’s IP protection, both legal and otherwise. The strength of that protection is determined by identifying the difference between the applicant’s invention and prior art — the new invention has to be a nonobvious improvement over the state of the art.
Another part of the due diligence analysis is to determine if there’s an obstruction to the right to practice or use the invention freely in the market. It’s dangerous if it’s necessary to get a license from another party to sell a product in order to avoid infringing.
How can entrepreneurs best prepare before pursuing funders?
Entrepreneurs should check their IP ahead of time. Patent applications need to be filed, research should have been conducted, and their novelty and any likely obstructions identified and clearly understood. Investors need to see a thoughtful canvassing of the principal issues that an investor needs cleared. If the efforts of the entrepreneur are consistent with the IP attorney’s findings, and the entrepreneur is honest and truthful with the potential investor, the momentum carries through to a deal.
There’s not much worse than when an entrepreneur says they have a patent and it’s just a provisional application; the person hasn’t done any research and is just hoping everything works out.
It’s understood that every nickel is precious when a company is in the early stages, but it’s important that a company conducts thorough research on its IP before seeking funding. •
Patrick R. Roche is a partner at Fay Sharpe LLP. Reach him at (216) 363-9000 or [email protected].
Steve Haynes is managing partner at Glengary LLC. Reach him at (216) 378-9200 or [email protected].
Insights Legal Affairs is brought to you by Fay Sharpe LLP
