Bult to Last: Protecting Competitive Advantage in Innovation-Driven Companies

Successful companies do not need to rely on innovation. In the modern business world, many traditional companies may compete, and succeed, without it. Some companies build their competitive advantage through relationships. Others compete primarily on price. Both can be valid strategies, and neither relies heavily on innovation. 

However, if you are an innovation-driven company, your advantage comes from building something others cannot easily replicate. That could be a technology, a system, a process, a distinctive way of solving a problem, or even a brand.

Innovation alone, however, is rarely enough. While innovation can create an initial competitive edge, that edge needs to be protected in order to last. In practice, successful ideas tend to attract attention. Others may attempt to replicate what works — often without bearing the original research and development costs — which, over time, can erode the innovator’s advantage. Without protection, innovation may amount to little more than a temporary head start.

I am not approaching this topic only as an IP practitioner. I have been a business owner for over 20 years and have worked with companies at different stages — from early-stage founders to large technology companies. Across these experiences, I have observed that businesses able to build long-lasting competitive advantages often take a long-term, rather than impulsive, approach to intellectual property.

When IP is developed and used well, it reinforces real business advantages. I have also seen companies overspend on IP that added little strategic value. The difference was rarely legal sophistication, or simply having a lawyer who could “get a patent.” Instead, it came down to whether the company understood where its real leverage points were.

At Synchrony IP, of which YHC IP is a founding member, we focus on identifying those leverage points — what we call “check points.” Every business has a small number of critical points that keep other parties in check and help protect its moat. Those “other parties” typically fall into three groups:

1. competitors who want to take your business,
2. collaborators or partners who work with you, and
3. customers or licensees who keep your business alive.

When properly identified, check points are actionable rather than abstract. They may take the form of a technical method competitors cannot legally use, a brand identifier customers rely on, or internal know-how that partners cannot access without you. Losing control over these check points directly erodes bargaining power. Different IP tools protect different types of check points.

1. A patent can be used to protect one or more key features of a product or solution, features that competitors cannot legally make use of or sell.
2. A trademark protects how a product, service, or company is identified in the market, anchoring customer recognition around names, logos, or other brand identifiers.
3. Trade secrets protect business information that derives its value from not being publicly known. The secret formula of Coca-Cola is a classic example.

Most businesses use a combination of these tools, often without explicitly recognizing which check points each tool is meant to protect, potentially leading to a waste of meaningful resources and time.

For example, some time ago I reached out to a former MBA classmate, who is now the CTO of a large company. I asked him how he thought about his company’s IP strategy. He replied that the company had a strong IP strategy because it held over 600 patents.

That answer, however, did not tell me much about the value those patents were creating. Would 60 well-positioned patents that reduced costs by 90% create the same or even greater strategic impact? Possibly. Without understanding which check points those patents were protecting, the number alone did not provide a clear answer.

At Synchrony IP, our goal is to help companies decide better. One of the tools we use is the One-Page Patent Plan (1PPP). Despite its name, it is not a patent filing exercise. It is a structured conversation that examines your business model, innovation surface, and the check points that matter most. In a one- to two-hour session, we explore different protection options and provide a concise view of strategic impact, timing, and trade-offs.

The goal is not to maximize the quantity of IP assets. The goal is to protect what actually keeps others in check. This is how YHC Intellectual Property helps companies make moat-widening decisions.