Protecting your intellectual property is extremely important. Some of the things you DON'T want to happen are:
- You find out 6 months down the road that a former founder (who left the team) owns some of what you though were the company's ideas and designs and/or code (but that person never signed an intellectual-property (IP) assignment contract so the company does not own it). That's very bad.
- You didn't have contractors sign an IP assignment contract, leading to the same problem as above.
- You didn't trademark your company name, and after spending money setting up for a big merchandising push, you find out that you have to change the company's name.
- You didn't protect your technology through either a patent or a trade secret, and someone else is copying it.
So it's important to pay attention to all the topics in this section of the road map!