Yuri Eliezer and Mikhail Avady founded IPSmartUp, a website startup designed exclusively to help entrepreneurs, small business owners, and inventors handle all of the challenges that come with protecting Intellectual Property. Yuri is a patent attorney himself, and Mikhail is a senior business analyst with First Data Corporation.
Yuri came up with the idea when Congress passed new patent reform in 2011, making a company like IPSmartUp crucial. The process itself is extraordinarily user-friendly: customers start on the SmartUp online platform, which guides users through the basics of preparing a patent application, then pairs the customer with an actual patent attorney to finish up the process. Here's a quick look behind the curtain at IPSmartUp.
Owners: 3
Location: We chose to grow our company in Atlanta because of the fast growing startup community (thanks to the help of organizations such as the Hype and ATV). We believe that Atlanta is going to be a sustainable tech hub due to the infusion of brilliant engineers from Georgia Tech and the many large technology companies that are either headquartered or building a base in Atlanta.
Employees: 3
Founded: December 2012
Funded or bootstrapped: Bootstrapped
Price of Services: Provisional patents range form $399 – $899
What Customers Get: Full Service intellectual property protection for an affordable rate without any hidden fees through a convenient easy to use platform.
How'd You Get The Idea For It: The idea for SmartUp® originated from an experienced patent attorney (the CEO of SmartUp®) who represents numerous multinational corporations at a top-tier intellectual property law firm. Through his experience, and in view of the patent reform signed into law in 2011 (known as the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act of 2011), the founding attorney could see that that solo inventors, startups, and small businesses will need the most help to protect their intellectual property.
On March 16, 2013, the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act switched U.S. Patent Law to a “First-to-File” standard. In general, this means that an inventor who is the first to file an application for a patent to the Patent Office wins priority to the patent rights for the invention. Before, U.S. Patent Law was based on a “First-to-Invent” standard. This meant that, even if an inventor was not the first to file for a patent on his idea, he could still “back-date” his priority to the invention by showing his earlier “date of conception.” This method of back-dating priority was known as the “Poor Man’s Patent.”
Collaboration Tools & Processes Do You Use: Asana has been key to the organization of our workflows and development. Our developer has also developed a great back-end to our platform that enables us to collaborate with our clients.
Where do you gain your insights from and how do you stay on top of emerging trends? Using the Pulse app we get a daily feed of emerging technology news.
Hypepotamus is a publication, housed in open collaborative space, where startup stories are living and told. The doors are open for students, developers, creatives and tech entrepreneurs willing to participating in the startup ecosystem. Hypepotamus is nonprofit, community supported and located at the historic Biltmore in Midtown, Atlanta.
