Before a Competitor Copies You: What Every Founder Should Know About IP

This masterclass is designed for startup founders, product designers, and new entrepreneurs who are developing a new venture, product, or service and need to understand how to protect their ideas. Most founders invest significant time and resources into building something original without a clear picture of how intellectual property works or what protection is actually available to them. Without the right IP strategy in place, brilliant ideas remain vulnerable to being copied, reducing market share, and stalling growth before it even begins. Marks & Clerk IP lawyers and patent agents Nikki Davy, Counsel, and Maria Wei, Senior Associate, will walk attendees through the foundational concepts of intellectual property including patents, trademarks, copyrights, designs, and trade secrets. The session will also cover government IP funding programs available to Canadian startups to help offset the costs of securing IP assets, and how the right IP strategy can help founders protect, grow, and commercialize their innovations both in Canada and globally. Attendees leave with a practical understanding of the IP landscape, the tools available to protect their business, and knowledge of funding opportunities that can make that protection more accessible. This session is part of the Global Startups 10th Anniversary Masterclass Series. As part of our week-long celebration, we invited select members of our community to share their expertise with a live audience. Marks & Clerk is one of those members, and this is their opportunity to open the door to a direct conversation with the founders and entrepreneurs ready to protect what they are building.