Protecting Your Ideas and Innovations at UC Berkeley Startup Studio: IP Fundamentals with Anita Choi
Featured Author: Anita Choi
This spring, Anita Choi, Partner at Morrison & Foerster, will be teaching a course titled Intellectual Property and Legal Essentials for Innovators & Entrepreneurs, designed to guide AI founders, product managers, marketing professionals, and business leaders through the complexities of the intellectual property landscape. A chemist by training, Choi transitioned into a career in patent law after realizing a desire to leverage her technical background in a field where she can help her clients protect and commercialize their innovations effectively. She works with startups, large multinational corporations, and investors alike to assist them in crafting an IP portfolio plan around their core technologies, seamlessly integrate IP portfolios with business models, and understand how IP may influence valuations and risk in a deal, respectively. However, she has a strong affinity for working with early-stage companies, as she enjoys immersing herself in the scientific core of the innovation, helping founders plan for commercialization, and bringing their ideas to market, allowing her to contribute to her clients’ successes directly.
In her course, participants will develop frameworks for their IP plans, understand the importance of patents and trade secrets, and explore industry-specific nuances in the life sciences, technology, and other sectors. Additionally, they will gain hands-on experience in drafting patents and claims, equipping them with practical skills for real-world application.
We caught up with Anita Choi to learn more about her journey, key IP fundamentals for founders, and what she is most excited about for her upcoming course.
Q: What inspired you to teach this course at the Berkeley Startup Studio, and what is the most important takeaway you hope to instill in your students?
I hope to share with students a framework to think about intellectual property, and how IP can play a role in generating value for their businesses. The goal is to equip students with the basic terminology about IP, with a particular focus on patents and trade secrets, and how to start thinking about the ways in which IP intersects with science and business. Also, as students venture off as entrepreneurs, we hope to equip them with the basic knowledge and desire to create an IP-savvy culture within their organizations, so that the company is well-positioned to protect its innovations at the onset.
There is a place and role for intellectual property, and I like to be able to share knowledge about why that’s important so that when students go out and start up their companies, they know how to interface with folks like myself.
Q: At what stage should a startup start thinking about IP protections?
Where there is technology innovation, there is an opportunity and role for IP. This also may depend on how the startup comes to be—specifically if this is a university spin-out, licensing and interacting with the institute’s technology transfer office might be the initial stage. If this is separate from the university, then the startup needs to think about protecting at the onset. Part of the course will explore how to think about when the “right” time to file patent protection will be, which is one of the tougher strategic questions we work with companies to answer.
Q: What are some of the most common IP challenges founders struggle with, and how should they prioritize IP protection when working with limited resources?
The patenting process is an investment—and if executed in a strategic way, patents can give the startup exclusivity for a certain period of time (20 years, give or take depending on the situation). But the patents need to provide meaningful coverage to create business leverage, and the course seeks to unpack what that means and what that might look like in different industries/sectors.
Q: What are the biggest risks startups face when they don’t properly protect their intellectual property?
After gaining commercial success, companies might start to see third-party competitors copying and entering the market in a way that affects market share. One aspect that we will explore in the course is how to strategically think about patent protection offensively and defensively, and also explore the role of and approach to trade secrets.
Q: What excites you most about teaching this course?
I just love the students and being able to share and hear about the students’ different interests. At the beginning of the course, I try to get a sense of who is in the audience to understand what industry sectors these students are coming from, and how my course might ultimately benefit them, and then be able to tailor some of my remarks to those interests. So really, it’s the students and sort of the diverse technology backgrounds and venture backgrounds that they bring to the table.
Through her course, she aims to instill a comprehensive understanding of the complex IP landscape and provide valuable experiences for early-stage startups and founders to tackle these challenges effectively and approach protecting their innovations with confidence.
UC Berkeley Startup Studio, a new suite of affordable, live online courses open to anyone, anywhere in the world, democratizes access to premier entrepreneurship education at the #1 university for startup creation. Designed to equip founders with the tools necessary to launch their ventures, UC Berkeley Startup Studio offers courses across a breadth of disciplines, led by a diverse group of accomplished entrepreneurs, executives, and leaders who bring first-hand experience building businesses to their instruction.