intellectual-property
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Jeffrey Tiong and the value of a difficult question
A tedious patent-search assignment gave Jeffrey Tiong the idea for Patsnap. Learning to lead the people building it proved a more demanding invention.
Angga Dwimas Sasongko and the story that stayed open
A coffee-shop set became a real café. For Angga Dwimas Sasongko, it was an early clue that a film could have a life beyond the cinema - and that Visinema could grow beyond its founder.
Viresh Chana and the business of keeping promises
From EY to Connor and Ruvixx, Viresh Chana has built a career around the distance between an agreement and what actually happens. His other preoccupation is the company people keep along the way.
Dan McKinnon and the trouble with a convincing N
At New Balance, Dan McKinnon defended a single letter across borders. At Proof Authentication, he is working to give buyers a way to check the product behind the logo.
Sherrese Clarke and the songs that refuse to retire
A childhood spent learning deals at the kitchen table became a career investing in culture. At HarbourView, Sherrese Clarke is asking how long a good song - and a good story - can keep working.
Jessica Sublett and the business of making room
Before Jessica Sublett became CEO of Bounce Innovation Hub, she helped build the machinery that kept it running. In Akron, her next chapter turns on a practical question: what does a good idea need around it to become a business?
Benjamin Bergen and the business of keeping Canada in the picture
He spent a decade helping Canadian technology companies find a voice in Ottawa. Now, as CVCA’s CEO, Benjamin Bergen is working on the next question: who will finance their growth?
Michael Friedman and the price of an idea
A marine-engineering graduate became a lawyer, an investor and a founder in patent finance. Michael Friedman’s career follows the difficult passage from knowing how something works to knowing what it is worth.
Accelerate Okanagan and the art of making a small city invest
In Kelowna, a technology nonprofit teaches both sides of the funding table. Its lesson for other regions: a promising founder is only half the equation.
The invention came first. CAI built the company.
The Center for Advancing Innovation turns publicly funded research into startup challenges. Its wager: a promising patent needs a capable team as much as a clever scientist.
Ikove Capital builds the company a patent can’t
A university invention can be brilliant and commercially homeless. Ikove Capital’s Startup Nursery supplies the people, capital, and market work that turn research into a business.
New Ventures BC asks the C$200 question: who will buy it?
A startup competition with homework, a volunteer network with rules, and a prize that comes after months of scrutiny. New Ventures BC helps founders turn a clever idea into a business someone might actually buy from.
Innovate Calgary makes the expensive middle of invention cheaper
A rejected accelerator application, shared laboratories and philanthropy-backed investment reveal how Calgary helps research become a business. The useful lesson is where to spend before anyone knows whether an idea will sell.
MAIN. wants Québec’s startup support to stop being a scavenger hunt
Québec has plenty of people helping entrepreneurs. MAIN. works on the connections between them - and is learning that a useful network needs more than a membership list.
Truth Arts wants you to love an ugly goblin
A free NFT mint gave Goblintown its audience. Truth Arts is testing whether that audience will follow its monsters into games, merchandise, and a much longer story.
Greenberg Traurig grew big by keeping decisions small
From a Miami deli to 51 locations, Greenberg Traurig built a global law firm around local authority. Its growth offers a useful lesson in delegation - and a costly reminder that trust needs checking.
Burns & Levinson: The lawyers were valuable. The firm came apart.
A Boston partnership built a business around staying close to clients. Its 2024 breakup reveals what happens when the people carrying those relationships find a better offer.
Clairvolex and the art of making patents less laborious
A patent portfolio is only as useful as the work behind it. Clairvolex turns years of handling that work into software for the inbox, the examiner’s objection, and the decision to keep paying for a patent.
MaxVal Group and the paperwork behind a bright idea
An invention gets the applause. The deadlines get MaxVal. Inside the software-and-services business making intellectual property easier to keep track of, act on and put to work.
Red Points and the cost of being copied
FILA ran out of patience with fighting fakes by hand. Red Points built a business around the awkward truth that a counterfeit listing can multiply faster than a lawyer can remove it.
PIP Labs Bet on Every Idea. The Data Won.
The Palo Alto engineers behind Story built a blockchain for anyone's intellectual property. The lesson from rights holders, AI labs, and a data startup they incubated sent them toward a narrower, more practical trade: proof that training data can be used.
Mark Tratos and the Fine Print Behind the Las Vegas Spectacle
For nearly half a century, the entertainment lawyer has worked where illusion meets ownership - protecting a silent magic act, a casino skyline and the fragile value of a famous name.
Joon Kim and the Code Behind the Counterfeit Chase
He once made code visible through mixed reality. Now the MarqVision founding engineer builds systems that make online infringement visible - and actionable - across a borderless internet.
The Patent Lawyer’s New First Draft
DeepIP put generative AI inside Microsoft Word, where patent attorneys already spend their days. The small interface decision reveals a much larger bet: the winner in legal AI may be the system that asks professionals to change the least.
Ticino Built a Front Door for Innovation - and Put a Technopark Behind It
The Canton of Ticino did not build another startup club. It built a triage desk, an accelerator, an investor bridge and a 90%-occupied technopark - then asked a small foundation to make the pieces behave like one system.
Purdue has the patents. Now comes the hard part.
Purdue Innovates connects university inventions with licenses, founders and capital. Its most revealing work happens when a promising idea meets an inconvenient customer.
Triathlon puts university research to work
At Saarland University, a startup can begin with a laser experiment or a round of speed dating. Triathlon connects the people, patents and practical help needed to turn either into a business.
AIC-Nalanda gives Odisha’s startup ideas a place to get real
Inside a Bhubaneswar incubator where prototype benches, patent advice and investor introductions share an address - and the next intake of innovators could still be in school.
Procopio Gives Startups a Desk Down the Hall From Their Lawyers
The San Diego law firm has spent decades advising businesses. Its in-house incubator puts it beside founders before the first big financing - while a wider practice handles everything from waterfront deals to a robotic dog petter.
RWS Has Spent 68 Years Teaching Machines That Words Are the Easy Part
The patent translator from Maidenhead now wants to become the cultural control layer for enterprise AI. A £690 million business, one trillion machine-translated words and a painful 2025 reset show both the promise and the price of that ambition.