When Flatfrog's founders started developing interactive touchscreen whiteboards, their primary concern wasn't protecting a specific number of patents —it was that they would be copied.
Protecting early intellectual property (the legal process that stops others from copying or stealing original inventions) is one of the most misunderstood challenges of building a company, says Ola Wassvik, one of Flatfrog’s cofounders.
Knowing when to file a patent can be difficult, and many founders underestimate the damage delaying the process can have.
“I had a cofounder who had experience in this and told me one [patent by itself] doesn't work. It took me about 10 years to realise he was right,” Wassvik says. “Even if you invented it first, if someone files it before you, you have nothing. That's the critical thing. You need to get in as early as possible.”
In an interview with Sifted, Wassvik shares what he learnt about protecting early intellectual property (IP) and the mistakes he made along the way.
Early innovation at Flatfrog
Emerging in 2007, the team at Flatfrog developed touchscreen technology and digital whiteboards for meetings and classrooms.
Before FlatFrog entered the market, early interactive whiteboards mainly relied on older, limited stylus pens that couldn't tell the difference between a finger, a palm, or a pen.
To accurately register handwriting, these styluses ran on batteries that communicated directly with the board. If the specific pen went missing or ran out of charge, the whiteboard couldn't be used with any other stylus.
Flatfrog solved this by developing technology that could distinguish between a finger and an inanimate object.
When people get £10m investment, they often spend like they have £100k in the bank.
Knowing they were developing a unique technology, the founders' first assumption was that another company copying their product was inevitable. “Whenever there's a new smart invention a lot of people think ‘why didn't I think of that?’ I know how easy it is to copy,” Wassvik says.
Because of this assumption, the team developed an early IP strategy. Early patents involved optical technology, including touch sensing, movement tracking (such as writing) and pen and object differentiation, allowing the whiteboard to distinguish between a human finger, an eraser or a piece of wood or plastic.
Wassvik, who also co-founded Lightbringer, an AI-native patent service for tech companies, advises companies to strike the right balance between securing multiple patents while saving cash, especially early on in the scaling process.
In order to strike this balance, the key is ensuring IP spending scales proportionately with the business and investment, Wassvik says.
"If you're a regular startup, you shouldn't be spending more than 2% of your entire budget on patents and IP because [without the capital], you're not going to build a company.”
Wassvik notes one exception to the 2% limit: licensing companies. If a startup's business model involves inventing technology, patenting it, and charging others a fee to use it, the intellectual property is the product.
For these specific businesses, he advises spending as large a percentage of the budget on patents as they can afford.
“I coach a lot of startups now on IP, largely through Lightbringer, and I tell them that you don't have a crystal ball,” he says. “You don't know what the future will look like, even if you're running perfectly in one direction, you need to cover yourself, because you will pivot.”
How Flatfrog developed its patent portfolio strategy
As Flatfrog scaled, its approach to IP shifted. Driven by the threat of competitors and investors wanting to protect their capital, the company started expanding their defensive portfolio.
"None of the top five patents we had filed, competitors were actually infringing on,” Wassvik says. “The stuff we thought was core to protect, they just worked around it.”
Flatfrog learned the value of IP didn't just lie in the initial broad concept, but in the specific, practical solutions discovered during the development phase of a product.
As the company grew, its patent portfolio focused more on refining the user experience and developing unique hardware designs. These included pressure sensitivity, ultra-thin designs and multi-stylus use detection.
“One of the things that most founders underestimate is how important and valuable the actual development work is,” Wassvik says. "Engineers often underestimate what is a patentable invention. They think that you need to invent rockets or something but you actually don't.”
You don't know what the future will look like.
The company's original approach to patent portfolio management — involving filing just a handful of patents at a time — broke under the cost, time and extensive admin involved.
"The old way we had done stuff just stopped working completely. When needing to file a lot more patents, you find you can't handle it all by yourself.”
Flatfrog attempted to bring IP management staff in-house. However, hiring full-time legal staff for a startup created unnecessary costs, admin and busywork, Wassvik says.
“There’s often not enough work for one person to do in-house so they start making up things for themselves to do,” he adds. “This generates more costs and work for the whole organisation around them.”
It became apparent the company needed to balance filing patents with budgets, Wassvik notes. Waiting too long to file out of the need to save cash can come with risks.
Future of IP patenting and advice to founders
The traditional way of securing IP usually involves companies reaching out to a specialised lawyer, which came with high billable hours and lengthy processes.
“20 years ago when I started it was important how well the attorney knew my subject matter. I had to spend a lot of time explaining to the attorney.”
Engineers often underestimate what is a patentable invention.
Over the past few years, AI patent management tools have changed the process of securing patents by acting as the bridge between innovation and legal expertise.
Companies such as Lightbringer are using AI to make protecting patents far easier and more accessible for startups.
The company combines AI software with in-house patent attorneys to act as a virtual IP department, using AI to do technical writing and research and human attorneys for final approval.
"With the help of AI not only can you describe it faster but you don't need an expert in your specific field,” Wassvik says. “You can focus on getting an attorney that actually knows the legal matter and you can focus on having AI as the middle person to do the bridging.”
Although protecting enough patents is important, an important piece of advice Wassvik gives founders is to know when to say “no”.
“Engineers love inventions and saying no is very difficult, but it can also cost a lot of money to not say no,” he says.
“It’s important to have a clear strategy and be comfortable saying no when something doesn’t align with that strategy. You can’t be “getting distracted by the nice shiny things,” Wassvik says.
