Is your company good enough to be a potential target?

Are you a serial entrepreneur who starts businesses with the intention of selling them to a large buyer? If not, have you maybe started to think along these lines? Are you an aspiring entrepreneur who spends time watching, exploring and learning new things?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, read on!

Getting bought by Google!” is a line that you come across more often these days. Many startups in the IT, communications and entertainment sector build platforms, software or technology that could be of interest to big players like Google or Microsoft, but competition is fierce as increasing numbers of people vie to produce and patent novel ideas.

If your goal is to be bought by one of the giants, it helps to have a very strategic approach toward filing a strong patent and building a strong valuation.

In our last Best Practices session, Anthony de Fazekas, Partner, Miller Thomson LLP, advised entrepreneurs on building robust patent applications that yield intellectual property of value to a tech major. To ensure high patent application success rate, he highlighted the following key points:

  • Build platform patents, not feature patents – Showcase the broader and more general platform that you might have invented or scaled!
  • Spell out the importance of your technology – The justification of the innovation you have made should be clearly communicated to show acquirers and investors the value adds!
  • Explain how your technology adds value to other patents – Don’t just cover your technology but specify the value your invention provides through other existing platforms!
  • Cover areas that tend to yield strong patent protection – Find unique areas of innovations that are not commonly thought about in large companies. These inventions will be easier to patent!

Find the hot tips video below:

 

The lecture video below covers the things that technology majors seek when purchasing a firm and offers advice on how to build a strong valuation of your company for potential acquisition. Anthony de Fazekas and Dan Servos (COO, Locationary) discuss the important role intellectual property plays in this process.

 

Lecture Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/webgoddesscathy/speaker-slides-best-practices-jan-24