IP Speaker Series: The AI & IP Checklist: What Startups Need to Get Right Before Their Next Financing
Artificial intelligence is changing not only how startups build products, but also the intellectual property questions investors ask when deciding whether to invest.
Join Maya Medeiros, Partner at Norton Rose Fulbright, and Byron Thom, Partner at BDC Capital, for a practical discussion of the AI and IP issues founders should be thinking about before their next financing. Drawing on the types of questions increasingly arising in investment due diligence, the session will examine how startups can protect their IP (including for AI-focused startups) while adopting AI throughout their products and businesses.
Topics will include:
Ownership and protection of AI-enabled innovation, including how traditional approaches to intellectual property are evolving as AI becomes part of the development process.
Data, third-party technology and AI tools, and the IP considerations that arise when startups build using technologies and information they did not create themselves.
Managing AI-related IP risk as a company grows, from internal use of AI through to relationships with customers and technology providers.
Preparing for investor diligence, including the practical steps founders can take today to identify and address potential AI and IP issues before a financing.
The discussion will combine legal and investor perspectives, using practical examples to help founders understand where AI can create unexpected IP risks, which issues investors are increasingly examining, and how good practices established early can help avoid problems during financing or a future acquisition.
Presenters:
Maya Medeiros – Maya Medeiros is an intellectual property lawyer, patent agent (Canada, US) and trademark agent (Canada, US) and has a degree in mathematics and computer science. She has extensive experience in artificial intelligence, blockchain, cybersecurity, cryptography, payments, graph theory, risk management, gaming, face recognition, communications, healthcare and medical devices, virtual and mixed reality, wearables, and other computer-related technologies. She is a key contributor to www.insidetechlaw.com on the ethical and legal implications of artificial intelligence.
Maya advises many companies on IP strategy and develops tailored IP policies and training programs across a wide range of topics. She is an adjunct professor at York University and teaches a course on the commercialization of intellectual property. She leads a collaboration with IP Osgoode Innovation Clinic to supervise its clinic students and service emerging companies.
Byron Thom (moderator) – Byron is a lifelong technology enthusiast who has worn many hats in his tech career. Trained as an engineer and a lawyer, he practiced at one of the leading IP boutiques in Canada helping startups and multinationals protect their technological assets. As a startup founder, he is a patented inventor who drafted and prosecuted his company’s own patent applications. And, as a venture capitalist and board member, he often works with his portfolio companies to develop IP strategies to focus their limited resources on key assets that matter to the business, to investors, and to potential acquirers.
Byron is a Partner at the BDC Industrial Innovation Venture Fund and sits on the Board of Governors at UBC.
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