IP Due Diligence Checklist for Fundraising: Assignments, Recorded Owners and Gaps

Thu, 29 Oct 2026 21:44:07 -0700

IP Assignment Agreements Before a Funding Round

Before an investor financing closes, the investors’ counsel asks who owns the company’s patents, marks, code and designs, and the company answers in writing. Use this IP due diligence checklist for fundraising in a priced round, where the company sells preferred stock under a stock purchase agreement.

A common starting point for the purchase agreement in a priced round is the NVCA Model Stock Purchase Agreement, which the NVCA updated in October 2025. Its intellectual property representation has the company say that each current and former employee, and each consultant involved in developing its IP, assigned that IP to the company and signed a “Confidential Information Agreement.” It also has the company say that no one excluded IP that would be material to the business from that assignment. Anything the company cannot say cleanly goes on the Disclosure Schedule as an exception. Those signed agreements are the IP ownership documents investors ask for, and the rest of the diligence is mostly a check that the registries agree with them. Collecting IP assignment agreements before a funding round, rather than during the data-room scramble, leaves time to fix what turns up.

Trademark Maintenance Filing Tracker: Confirmed Due Dates and Evidence

Thu, 29 Oct 2026 18:36:02 -0700

The Mark Record and Its Due Date

Most teams keep a trademark maintenance filing tracker in two layers. Each registered mark gets one row holding the due date its registry or counsel confirmed, and each post-registration filing gets one row holding its status and the document that proves the outcome.

Registry, Owner, and Numbers

Start with the owner of record. The registration belongs to a specific entity, and in a group the entity on the certificate is often a subsidiary, not the parent. Put one row on the mark register per registration, with that entity in the Owner column, so a question like “which of our marks does the Ohio subsidiary hold?” has an answer you can filter for. The declaration is filed in that owner’s name, and the USPTO warns that a filing can be refused when its ownership information does not match the USPTO’s records.

Intellectual-Property on Lextree AI

IP Due Diligence Checklist for Fundraising: Assignments, Recorded Owners and Gaps

IP Assignment Agreements Before a Funding Round

Trademark Maintenance Filing Tracker: Confirmed Due Dates and Evidence

The Mark Record and Its Due Date

Registry, Owner, and Numbers