Author: Aindrila Mitra
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Declaring SEPs to SDOs: Rules, Timing, and Pitfalls
If you are building real technology and working with standards, there is a moment where patents stop being optional and start being mission-critical. That moment is when your invention touches a standard. This is where Standard Essential Patents, or SEPs, enter the picture. And this is also where many founders make quiet mistakes that cost…
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How a Patent Becomes “Essential” to a Standard
A patent does not become powerful by accident. It becomes powerful when the world starts using it without even knowing it. That is what happens when a patent becomes “essential” to a standard. This article explains, in plain and simple words, how that happens, why it matters so much, and what founders and engineers can…
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FRAND Basics: Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory in Plain English
Patents shape how modern technology gets built, shared, and sold. Most founders know patents matter, but very few understand how patents behave when they sit at the center of big, shared tech standards like Wi-Fi, 5G, video codecs, or payment systems. That confusion is exactly where FRAND comes in. FRAND sounds like legal noise. It…
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SEPs Explained: What “Standard-Essential” Really Means
If you build tech that talks to other tech, this topic matters to you. A lot. Standard-essential patents, or SEPs, quietly control how modern products work, who gets paid, and who gets locked out. Founders often hear the term too late, usually when a big company sends a scary letter. This article fixes that. We…
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Deal-Ready IP Playbook: 30-Day Plan to Pass Diligence
Deals do not fall apart at the pitch. They fall apart in diligence. This is the moment when investors, buyers, or partners stop listening to stories and start looking for proof. They want to see who owns the technology, how it is protected, and whether anything could blow up after the check clears. If your…
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Valuing IP in a Term Sheet: Methods That Hold Up
Every serious startup deal comes down to one quiet question: what is the company really worth? Not the pitch. Not the story. Not the deck. The real answer lives inside the intellectual property. Your code. Your models. Your designs. Your methods. The things that make your company hard to copy. When a term sheet lands,…
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Red Flags That Kill Deals: A Practical Shortlist
Deals do not die because the tech is bad. They die because trust breaks. Investors, acquirers, and partners all look for reasons to say no. Most of those reasons are not loud. They are quiet signals that something is off. A missing document. A vague answer. A patent story that does not add up. A…
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Post-Close Integration: IP Recordation, Re-Papering, and Notices
The deal is done. Money moved. Hands were shaken. Everyone is celebrating. That is exactly when most teams make their biggest IP mistakes. After a close, your IP does not magically “snap into place.” Patents are not auto-updated. Assignments do not fix themselves. Old names, old entities, and old promises stay on the record unless…
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Cap Table Meets IP: Equity, Vesting, and Assignment Timing
Every startup has two documents that decide its future, even if founders do not realize it at first. One is the cap table. The other is the ownership of the IP. Most teams obsess over the cap table. Who owns what. How much is vested. What happens if someone leaves. These are normal questions. They…
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Export Controls & Sanctions: IP Transfers Without Violations
If you are building serious technology, you are already moving intellectual property across borders, whether you realize it or not.Every time you share source code with a contractor overseas, give a technical walkthrough to a foreign hire, upload models to a global cloud server, or send a patent draft to a co-founder who happens to…