Insight category
IP & IT insights: protect what you build, and make it investable.
This category covers the legal fundamentals of technology projects:
how to structure IP ownership, avoid “broken” code provenance, prepare for due diligence,
and align website, data, and IT practices with what investors, partners and regulators expect.
What you’ll get from this category
Practical IP & IT basics:
- IP ownership and assignment: making sure the company truly owns the code.
- Open-source and contractor risks that break due diligence.
- Website legal and data basics (privacy, cookies, terms, disclaimers).
- IT governance basics regulators and banks often ask about (access, logs, backups).
If IP is messy, licensing and fundraising become slower and more expensive.
Quick map
The 3 checks that prevent “IP breaks” later
If you fix these early, due diligence becomes much smoother.
Ownership
Foundation
Assignments from founders/contractors/employees, clean chain of title, and clear repository control.
Risk
Control
License conflicts, unclear contributor status, and “work-for-hire” myths across jurisdictions.
Surroundings
Readiness
Terms, privacy, cookies, disclaimers, security practices, and what partners look for first.
Key topics
IP & IT explained in investor and regulator language
These blocks cover what usually matters most in due diligence and partner onboarding.
1) IP ownership: chain of title
- Founder IP assignment: why it should exist even if you “built it yourself”.
- Contractor and employee IP: agreements, moral rights, and jurisdiction pitfalls.
- Repository control and access: who can push, approve, and release.
- What investors ask: proof of ownership, not “we believe it’s ours”.
Practical output: a clean IP ownership folder (assignments + repo access map + key asset list).
2) Open-source and third-party risk
- Where open-source becomes a problem: copyleft triggers, license incompatibility.
- Dependency governance: how to track, approve and update libraries.
- Contributor risk: who wrote what, under what agreement, and can they later claim rights?
- Vendor contracts: SLAs, IP warranties, liability limits and exit/escrow logic.
Practical output: a simple OSS policy + dependency inventory to satisfy due diligence questions.
3) Website legal + data basics
- Terms of Use and disclaimers: align with your actual product and risk profile.
- Privacy and cookies: what is needed when you collect user data or run analytics.
- Marketing claims: what creates licensing or liability exposure.
- Security basics: access control, logs, backups, incident response (even for startups).
Practical output: a “website legal pack” that reduces friction with users, partners and regulators.
4) The most common IP/IT mistakes
- Key code written by contractors without proper assignment.
- IP split across multiple entities or founders with no clean transfer.
- Over-promising in marketing: creates licensing and liability problems.
- No evidence of security controls and change management when asked by partners.
Practical output: a prioritized remediation list (what to fix first before fundraising or licensing).
Featured in IP & IT
Start with these IP & IT insights
Anchor texts that help you get ownership, website legal and due diligence readiness right.
IP • Fundraising
Guide
Where IP usually “breaks” during due diligence and how to avoid losing investor trust because of ownership gaps.
Best first read before fundraising.
Website & Docs
Checklist
What should be in Terms of Use, Privacy Policy and disclaimers if your platform touches tokens and digital assets.
Connected to the Website Legal Pack.
IP • Protection
Toolkit
Core templates and a roadmap: assignments, contractor clauses, trademark basics, and due diligence readiness.
A structured starting point if you need to fix IP quickly.
Related to IP & IT
Go from insight to implementation
Once basics are fixed, the rest (jurisdiction, licensing, compliance) becomes easier and cheaper.
Services
Workstream
IP structuring, contracts, OSS risk checks, website legal, and due diligence support.
Products
Package
A ready framework: assignments, templates, checklist and a short roadmap to become investable.
Compliance
Dependencies
If you plan licensing, IT controls and evidence are a compliance requirement — not optional.
How to use this category
A simple way to become “due diligence ready”
Treat IP & IT as an asset: it needs ownership proof, risk controls and clean documentation.
If you are a founder or team
- Collect a list of key IP: code repos, domains, trademarks, brand assets, data, contracts.
- Fix ownership: assignments from founders and contractors, clean chain of title.
- Do an OSS sanity check and create a simple dependency inventory.
- Align website terms/privacy and claims with your actual product and risk profile.
Investors rarely worry about “good code” — they worry about “does the company own it and can it defend it”.
If you are an investor or advisor
- Ask for chain of title and key assignment documents.
- Check contractor and OSS risk and whether there is governance.
- Confirm the website and marketing claims align with the legal model.
- Look for basic IT controls and evidence (access, logs, backups, incident response).
Want to fix IP and become due diligence ready?
Send a short description of your structure (entities), who built the code (founders/contractors),
and what you are preparing for (fundraising, licensing, partnerships). We’ll outline a practical IP & IT plan.
Focus: ownership, enforceability, documentation, and the minimum IT controls partners expect.
What to include in a short message:
- Entities involved (holding/operating) and where they are incorporated.
- Who built the product (employees vs contractors) and where repos are hosted.
- Any OSS-heavy components or third-party vendors.
- What you need next: fundraising, licensing, partner onboarding, or an IP cleanup.
If you already have contracts or assignment drafts, attach them — it speeds up the review.