Do Venture Capitalists Care About Intellectual Property?

There has been much debate around intellectual property IP): When do I get a patent? Do I need a trademark? Should I bother with copyrights? Do venture capital (VC) firms care about IP? Does anyone else really care about innovation or IP protection? The answer is “yes” to all of the above.

IP matters. According to Dr. Kristina Lybecker in aMarch 2015 IP Watchdog article, IP-intensive industries have more than double the sales and capital spending than that of non-IP-intensive industries , and wages are more than 50% higher in IP-intensive industries. For these reasons—and myriad others—it’s imperative that businesses care about their intangible assets from the very beginning; if they wait until they’re seeking VC funding, then they risk jeopardizing everything. Take GrooveShark for example. Copyright issues plagued the company, and it was sued into shutting down earlier this year. For complete and original post here