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Comment by Rariel | Hacker News Reader

Very important. As a lawyer and startup founder I find it really interesting that IP law isn't mentioned more on blogs/hacker sites/ etc because it is very important, especially the TM aspect. Perhaps it's because most startups fail or never get big enough to run in to these issues?

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As someone who has tried to educate new entrepreneurs about IP, I can tell you it's really hard to get the message across. By default, new founders just have no idea that IP matters at all. They understand moral principles like "stealing is bad", but they are clueless about licenses, patents, copyright and trademarks. It takes at least 2 hours of a pretty intense discussion to get them to even remotely open their eyes.

And in practice, does it really matter? Look at YouTube, they cheated to get started, and no one seems to care. Better cheat and win than play by the rules.

The new entrepreneurs you deal with, have they worked in other startups before or are they really young?

The first thing I did with my company was hire a lawyer. This is the first company I've personally started, but not my first startup. So my question above has to do with the experience level of the folks to whom you are preaching. To me, getting incorporated correctly, trademark searches, etc. was extremely important and well worth the money I paid.

Well,

Happy you're failing...

Seriously, the more people who defy IP, the weaker it gets...

"The Facts": 'IP Owners' aim to get whatever they can, like beavers damning a stream to get all the fish, the IP industry is currently proceeding with unbounded ambitions.

Yes, tell me I'm conflating copyright, trademark, patent and other legal device. Just like that little troll called ... Oracle...

Although the concept our start-up created http://Sleep.FM - The Social Alarm Clock® has not become a popular one(not yet at least), we see many others giving the concept a go and inadvertently (we assume) use our registered mark to market their app or web service. Most developers when notified of their infringement of mark cease use - yet i often wonder if these developers did a Google search before spending time and or money to develop their product?

Yes

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