I just received an email from a blog reader asking for a recommendation for a book that addresses the “importance of intellectual property with regard to building successful technology companies.” I’ve read several IP-related books in the past (one of the guest lectures I used to give at MIT Sloan School for 15.351: Managing the Innovation Process was titled “Copyrights, Patents, and Trade Secrets” – the online lecture notes from 2002 have some references to readings on Standards, Patents, & Open Source) but I’ve never found one that I would call my “go to book.”
I passed on the request to Jason Mendelson (our general counsel and my co-conspirator on the Term Sheet series of posts) and he recommended The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Business Law. While this book isn’t specifically about IP, there is a large section on general IP law. It’s also a superb book that should be in every entrepreneur’s library.
Craig Dauchy – one of the co-authors – is a long time friend and collegue of ours and one of the managing partners at Cooley Godward – one of the premium law firms for VC-backed companies. So – Craig knows of what he speaks.