Seek Professional Assistance
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Attorneys, Accountants, & Other Professionals
You will need a good lawyer, accountant, and other expert assistance to start and run your business. Look for professionals with experience in the specific field where you need expertise and whom you trust and work with well. For example. . .
- Accountants – Look for experience working with small business startups and SBIR funding. For taxes, seek a business tax expert.
- Attorneys – Look for familiarity with life science startups and licensing. Attorneys are needed to help set up the company, identify and record your obligations, and deal with intellectual property (IP), licensing, and investors’ rights.
- Bank Officer – Look for a bank that is familiar with and able to provide services for a life science company from startups through later stages.
- Insurance Broker – Look for experience with business insurance.
(Thiefels, 2019)
Example: Hiring an Attorney to Protect Intellectual Property
What are the advantages of establishing your intellectual property legally?
- It is attractive to investors and customers.
- It deters infringement lawsuits from others claiming some or all of your technology is their idea.
- It may deter others from working on something similar.
- It adds value to your company’s assets and can increase your leveraging power.
(National Law Review, 2018)
References
Thiefels J. 5 Professionals Every Business Owner Should Work With. ThriveHive. January 3, 2019.
What Start-ups Need to Know About Intellectual Property. The National Law Review. September 25, 2018.
Tips
To find professionals, take advantage of state and local resources available to small businesses, often free of charge. The Small Business Administration (SBA) website has a searchable database of local resources.
Some law firms will provide services at a low cost if your business looks like it will be a good source of future income.
You can charge part of the expense of hiring professionals to the indirect costs in grant awards.
You may want to employ a personal attorney to represent your interests—for example, if your interests diverge from the business’s interests.
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Intellectual Property FAQs
Business Name, Tax IDs, and Insurance
Challenge:
See how much terminology you know about protecting intellectual property or give it your best guess and learn some definitions of important terms to know.
Instructions: Drag the words at the bottom into the boxes you think correspond with the correct definition.
