For a software, hardware, or content business, the company's IP is the company. An institutional investor will not close a financing without a clean record showing that every piece of IP that matters is owned by the entity, not by an individual founder, contractor, or prior employer. The pre-financing IP audit is one of the most reliably surfaced findings in diligence, and the cleanup work is materially more expensive than getting the structure right at formation.
The pieces below collect every Capital insight, guide, and quarterly story on IP assignment, PIIA architecture, and the work-for-hire doctrine.
Foundational Guide
Setting Up a Venture: Formation, Capitalization, and Term Sheets
Step Three: IP Assignment Is the Asset. Founder IP assignment with present-tense language, employee and contractor PIIA architecture, work-for-hire under 17 U.S.C. Section 101 (the nine enumerated categories), prior-employer risk, and the pre-financing IP audit.
Capital Guide
Studio Engagements
IP assignment from studio to portfolio company: pre-formation studio work product, brand and marketing assets, customer relationships, investor materials. Present-tense assignment language, the work-for-hire scope, and the missing-IP cleanup paths when financing diligence surfaces a gap.
Capital Quarterly · Q2 2026
The FTC Non-Compete Rule After the Fifth Circuit
PIIA confidentiality and IP-assignment provisions remain straightforwardly enforceable in nearly all jurisdictions and continue to do most of the protective work the non-compete was historically asked to do. The rule's vacatur did not affect the IP-assignment side of the PIIA.