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Nintendo buys Canadian game studio in rare acquisition
While gaming giants Sony and Microsoft have made M&A a critical part of their strategic growth plans, Nintendo has always seemed to be more reluctant to bring outside talent into the fold of its video game empire. Today, the company announced that it will be acquiring the developer behind Luigi’s Mansion 3, Canada-based Next Level Games.
Nintendo’s announcement is the first studio acquisition for the company since their 2007 purchase of Xenoblade Chronicles developer Monolith Soft.
Next Level Games has been working on Nintendo-licensed IP exclusively for the better part of the last decade, crafting a number of titles across some of the company’s second tier of intellectual property including the Super Mario Strikers series as well as mobile iterations of Metroid Prime and Luigi’s Mansion.
The Vancouver-based studio’s recent Luigi’s Mansion 3 title for the Nintendo Switch has been a pretty huge success for the company which has had pretty light offerings of first-party IP since the system’s launch. In a recent earnings report, Nintendo shared that Luigi’s Mansion 3 had sold nearly 8 million copies, earning it a spot as one of the system’s top-selling titles.
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IP strategy: How should startups decide whether to file patents
Bryant Lee, Ed Steakley & Saleh Kaihani
Contributor
Contributor
Bryant Lee is the co-founder and managing partner of Cognition IP, a YC-backed IP law firm for startups. Ed Steakley was the Head of IP at Airware and Senior Patent Counsel at Apple. Saleh Kaihani is a partner at Cognition IP.
Deciding what to patent can be a confusing process but by creating a formal process it is something that every startup can manage.
Intellectual property (IP) is one of the most valuable assets of a startup and patents are often chief among IP in terms of value. Patents allow the startup to prevent competitors from using their technology, which is a powerful feature that can grant unique advantages in the marketplace.
From a business perspective, patents can help with driving investment and acquisitions, provide protection during partnerships and business deals, and help defend itself against patent lawsuits by others.
However, startups also often have a hard time determining when and what to patent. Innovative startups are inventing new things on a regular basis, and there is a danger of slipping into a haphazard approach of patenting whatever happens to be available rather than systematically analyzing the business needs of the company and protecting the IP that moves the needle the most.
Moreover, startups must balance the need to protect IP with other areas of the business: Patents are complex documents that require an investment of time and resources to obtain. They often require specialized legal counsel to write and a lengthy examination process at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO).
This article is a how-to guide for startups to make the decision on when and what to patent with a mature approach to IP strategy.
Table of Contents
- Creating a regular IP harvesting process
- Invention cataloging and scoring
- The scoring system
- Conclusion
Creating a regular IP harvesting process
In order to make a decision about what to patent, a startup must first know what IP it has. For very small teams, it may be possible for everyone to have a shared idea of the IP. However, once teams grow beyond a few people, it is no longer possible to have complete visibility into what everyone on the team is doing and potentially inventing. Therefore, a regular IP harvesting process must be put in place to ensure proper reporting of IP to the executive level.
Most startups are best served with a simple IP harvesting process involving just three steps: (1) disclosure (2) invention review and (3) patent filing. In the disclosure stage, employees who are in IP creation roles must be trained to disclose ideas that are potentially protectable IP.
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Leaving for a competitor? Onboarding new employees? Avoid accusations of trade secret theft
Nick Saenz
Contributor
Contributor
Nick Saenz is a partner at Lewis & Llewellyn LLP, a boutique litigation firm in San Francisco specializing in complex corporate litigation.
When a company hires talent away from a competitor, onboarding the new employee can pose significant legal risks for both the company and the new employee. A fundamental aspect of Silicon Valley is that employees are generally free to move between competitors.
This unrestricted movement of talent facilitates the robust competition that helps drive the Silicon Valley economy. While this is no doubt positive, unfettered employment mobility also creates unique challenges when it comes to protecting a company’s trade secrets, which are the lifeblood of many Silicon Valley companies.
Because of California’s policies regarding free employment mobility, unlike in most other states, California companies cannot protect their trade secrets with non-compete contracts. So, they instead rely heavily on trade secret laws for protection.
And, of course, when trade secret theft occurs, it is often when an employee transitions from one company to another. Thus, when a key employee gives notice that he or she is leaving for a competitor, it sets off alarm bells for the soon-to-be former company.
Unfortunately, because of the hypersensitivity to protecting trade secrets, many departing employees who have no interest in actually taking their former company’s trade secrets get accused of theft. This allegation can trigger a long, stressful, expensive legal process for both the employee and the new company, and sometimes cost the employee his or her reputation and new job.
This article explains how this situation arises and provides some practical considerations for how the employee transitioning jobs, and the onboarding company, can avoid an unnecessary legal fight.
1. California companies’ aggressive protection of trade secrets.
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Companies expect IP theft to rise in the next year, according to a new survey from Deloitte
Intellectual property theft may not be discussed as much as data breaches that see customers’ credit card and other personally identifiable information stolen by hackers. But online theft of IP is a growing concern in tech, according to a new survey by Deloitte, Cyberattackers and Your Intellectual Property. That concern is even higher within the automotive industry, where 64% think it… Read More
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