Patent, Publish or Keep Quiet? A Founder Friendly Guide for protecting your intellectual property.
Whether you’re innovating in AI, biotech, hardware or software, you’ve probably already faced the challenge: should you register protection for your idea, publish it to get the momentum going, or keep it quiet for now? It’s a question I hear constantly from founders, and it’s one that can genuinely shape the future of your business.I’ve just finished writing a full white paper on this topic for Cambridge Tech Week, and I wanted to share a summary here ahead of my talk at Stratagem IPM’s fringe event: https://luma.com/gm2ni519
Intellectual property can affect your company valuation, your ability to raise investment, and your competitive position. And, as many founders discover the hard way, timing is everything. Publishing too early can permanently remove your ability to patent in some jurisdictions. Keeping things too quiet can slow momentum, and filing too late can leave you exposed. For first time founders especially, it’s hard to know when to judge the correct timing to support your company’s growth.
How to choose the right approach?
Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks are the right choice when you want to secure exclusive rights over how your invention is used, marketed, and commercially exploited. However, the trade off for protection is transparent disclosure of your invention to the public. Publication is great for scientific advancement, but once your innovation is in the public domain your options for registering protection are limited. Trade secrets can be powerful for protecting manufacturing know how and internal processes, but only if you actively and continuously maintain secrecy.
The biggest mistake I see? Publishing before filing for registered protection. And publication doesn’t just mean journals. It includes LinkedIn posts, conference slides, website updates and even informal conversations without an NDA. It’s surprisingly easy to accidentally disclose something with significant knock on effects.
Investors look closely at this now as a way to protect their own portfolio interests. They want to see clear ownership, no early disclosure mistakes, and a protection plan that scales with the business. Ultimately, it is not just about having protection in place, but about having the right strategy for your business.
If you’d like my full white paper, which goes into more detail on this topic, or you’d like an initial chat about your own IP position, please get in touch. I look forward to seeing you to talk about this further at our fringe event: https://luma.com/gm2ni519
Happy Cambridge Tech Week, and here’s to protecting the brilliant ideas being built across our region.
The views expressed in this Sponsor article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of Cambridge Tech Week.