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Dominic Davies, chief executive and co-founder of Lightbringer, says that IP strategy should not begin with the first patent or with investors. It should begin alongside the technology itself.
For medtech founders, medical device patent and intellectual property (IP) strategy is far more than a legal consideration. It is a core commercial decision that can determine whether a company can navigate regulation, secure approvals, attract investment, withstand years of development, and ultimately achieve a successful exit.
Yet building robust medtech IP protection is expensive. Patent attorney fees, filing costs, international prosecution and long-term maintenance all place a significant financial burden on startups.
At the same time, medtech companies must also navigate patent landscapes dominated by much larger incumbents while funding protection through years of regulatory approval, long before any product generates revenue.
This means patent strategy cannot be treated as a one-off filing exercise. It requires sustained investment, a layered approach, and planning that evolves alongside the development and regulatory process.
Protecting innovation is no longer simply about filing patents. Founders need to consider balancing patents, trade secrets, contracts and freedom-to-operate together to support fundraising, commercialisation and long-term growth.
Ultimately, strong IP is what makes medtech startups fundable, defensible, and ultimately acquirable.
Get the legal foundations right, early
IP assignment agreements, contractor agreements and NDAs are essential to ensuring that the company, rather than individual founders, employees, or collaborators, owns the technology it is building.
Yet these foundations are often neglected in many early-stage companies and the consequences can be severe.
For instance, MedTech, Inc., a developer of haemoglobin-based oxygen carriers, filed for bankruptcy in 2022 amid a dispute with its founder and former chief executive over ownership of its core patents. A Delaware bankruptcy court ruling detailed allegations that he had attempted to reassign the company’s patent applications to himself and a separate company he owned.
More recently, Heartflow sued rival Cleerly in the US, alleging that a former Heartflow executive used confidential knowledge of Heartflow’s technology, patents and commercial strategy after joining Cleerly. Both cases underline the importance of robust IP ownership, confidentiality agreements and protections around employee transitions.
The strategic tradeoffs of patents vs trade secrets
Every invention presents a strategic decision: should it be patented, or protected as a trade secret?
Getting this decision wrong can leave an innovation unnecessarily exposed or force a company to disclose technology that could have remained confidential.
For physical medical devices, patents are essential because products are usually vulnerable to reverse engineering. Software algorithms and cloud-based technologies, by contrast, may in some cases be better protected as trade secrets. This choice also shapes a company’s freedom to operate: what it can build without infringing a competitor’s own patents or secrets, which becomes harder to assess the more a product blends hardware, software and data.
Neither approach is perfect. Trade secrets offer no protection against independent invention, while patents are not self-enforcing and infringement can be difficult to detect, particularly where software or backend technology is invisible to the end user. The right approach, in most cases, depends on the technology itself, the competitive environment and the company’s wider commercial strategy.
Why modern medtech makes this harder
The increasing convergence of hardware, software, cloud platforms and patient data is also changing the IP landscape. The complexity means startups need to secure layered IP portfolios rather than relying on patents alone.
Medical technology companies are increasingly facing the kind of patent litigation that was once more commonly associated with tech giants.
An RPX report found that non-practising entity (NPE) filings against medtech companies rose 21.6% in the fourth quarter of 2024 alone, while 370 new NPE lawsuits targeted the sector last year. As medtech products increasingly combine hardware, software and data, they’re becoming more attractive targets for NPEs, with the complexity of these products providing more components and features around which patent claims can be asserted.
Prioritise, don’t try to patent everything
For early-stage companies, attempting to patent everything is neither financially realistic nor strategically necessary. Instead, founders should identify their crown jewels: the patents that protect the company’s core technology and address the unmet clinical need. This should be the priority, not attempting blanket coverage.
From there, startups can adopt a defensive-ecosystem strategy on top of this, patenting not just products they intend to commercialise but surrounding technologies too, to deter competitors. This provides a further layer once the crown jewels are secured, since it demands significant additional capital and planning.
This becomes particularly important in areas such as surgical robotics and wearable biosensors, where overlapping patents can create dense patent thickets that act as barriers for startups and can delay product launches, often forcing companies into complex cross-licensing deals just to enter a market.
Patent protection should reflect where a company expects to generate revenue, rather than pursuing broad international coverage, which can become prohibitively expensive, particularly for a startup still years away from commercialisation.
Instead, founders should map their IP strategy against their expected markets, competitors, manufacturing footprint and potential acquisition opportunities.
Get specialist help (this isn’t generalist legal work)
Medtech and neurotech patent law is highly specialised. Attempting to manage filings without experienced counsel risks costly mistakes.
Recent litigation demonstrates what happens when you don’t. In July this year, the Munich Regional Court found Illumina liable for infringing Element Biosciences’ DNA-sequencing patent rights, with the judgement including a product recall.
Specialist help, though, does not mean relying exclusively on traditional counsel. AI tools can increasingly handle parts of the heavy lifting involved in patent strategy, including handling prior art research, technical drafting support, and the deep technical legwork that used to require large teams of specialist attorneys.
The opportunity is augmentation, not replacement. AI can help founders move faster and access a level of patent rigour that was previously available mainly to companies with large legal budgets, while experienced counsel remains responsible for their own strategy, judgement calls and jurisdiction-specific decisions.
The commercial payoff
Ultimately, strong patent portfolios strengthen fundraising, increase acquisition value and increase attractiveness to potential acquirers who need to see a startup’s patented technology as a protected, scalable asset, not just a product.
With medtech investment and M&A activity remaining strong in 2026, IP diligence is becoming increasingly important as buyers compete for differentiated assets.
Winning medtech companies therefore do not simply accumulate patents. They strategically protect their most valuable innovations, manage freedom-to-operate risks early, and build an IP position that supports the company’s commercial ambitions.
For founders, the lesson is simple: IP strategy should not begin when the company is ready to file its first patent, or when an investor asks about the portfolio. It should begin alongside the technology itself.
