IPHatch: Empowering Intellectual Property and Patents in Startups, One Step At A Time

Piece Future is an Asia-based intellectual property (IP) bank that helps high-tech corporations, institutions, and startups manage their IP portfolios. The company offers a wide range of services, including IP investment advisory, IP asset management, IP innovation platforms, and capital advisory. Piece Future also organizes an open innovation competition called IPHatch The competition seeks to connect IP owners with entrepreneurs to co-create innovative solutions. IPHatch provides startups with the opportunity to commercialize IP & technology portfolios and bring business concepts to fruition. With that, why don’t you join me in learning more about IPHatch with its Head of Innovation and Partnerships, Claire Lim.

What is Piece Future and what role does IPHatch play? 

Peace Future is an intellectual property investment bank where we focus on helping corporates to monetize their IP. That is actually mainly focused on patents. When we talk about patent monetization, there's a few ways that we can do that. One way is to do brokerage by selling licenses. Another way is of course to look into investments into startups or small medium enterprises. Right now Peace Future itself is really focused on and being big on sustainability. We really stand on this vision that patents can be recycled and reused, even though they have been created using quite a bit of resources from a company. They can be given to other startups or even small medium enterprises to be built on their business, their products, and their services so that it doesn't go to waste. Of course, patents can be used for a lot of other things like defensive purposes, litigation. We are also encouraging open innovation. When we talk about open innovation, it's really something that we are trying our best to connect the ecosystem between the corporates, the startups, the government, the accelerators, and the incubators. That's where we really try to build on how we can do sustainability with innovations together. This is what Peace Future is really focusing on right now.

IPHatch is one of the programs that we have that works with startups. This is the program where we mainly take corporate patents and put them into different categories and sectors and work with startups to build a product. In a way, it’s also like a competition where startups will come forward and share with us how they think their business would suit these patents that we usually put on our website. We conduct pitch days as well which we call “IPHackathons” for them to find the most suitable patents for their business.

What sets IPHatch apart from other advisory firms? What are its products and services?

I think the uniqueness about what we do is mainly that we are using patents as an asset to help startups and companies build in other ways. A patent is an intangible asset. It has a unique amount of value to it provided that it is used properly. If it's not being used, it's always regarded as a piece of paper. This is really our uniqueness.

How do you measure the success and impact of partnerships and innovation initiatives at IPHatch? What metrics do you use to track progress?

Of course, we focus more on the quality of the startups that come forward. I think quantity is definitely not something that we're focusing on. We are big on quality for sure because in the first place, having a match with a patent is a difficult thing. It's like matchmaking, you have to go through a lot of people just to find one person that's suitable. So it's the same for the patent itself. It's not that every patent out there is suitable for the company, the business, and the stage where the business is in right now. I think to measure the success is to really focus on the quality, how they can implement this technology within their business, and what kind of other technologies they can build on this patent itself. This is because we never encourage companies to just come up with one or two patents because that is definitely not sufficient in protecting the entire business itself.

Can you share an example of a successful partnership or collaboration that you helped facilitate at IPHatch? What made it successful, and what were the key lessons learned from that experience??

A successful partnership definitely has to be a win-win situation between both parties. There are definitely tons of partnerships that we have to do day to day. We definitely have to work with different partners in depth because they must have the same vision and mission as us in the first place to be able to drive the same kind of message out there. An example would be with our partnership with the Hong Kong Trade Development Council. The key really to working with them is because they have been trying to drive the city as a key technology enabler and also to promote the adoption of technology. IP actually fits into the agenda by being able to connect and commercialize technologies and digitize their startups even further. We work with them from the marketing of the program, to recruitment, all the way to working with them and partnering their ecosystem partners to run events, seminars, workshops, online and offline. Also, having Hong Kong as the place where we also encourage other startups from other cities to also have a base there since that's also what the Hong Kong trade Development Council wants. That's really an example of a very successful partnership because they are driving this for their mission and vision. They hope that more deep tech can emerge within the city. For us, we want to promote this and we want to bring international corporations to Hong Kong. This is definitely something that I think is a win-win partnership.

As the Head of Innovation and Partnerships, what is your long-term vision for the organization? How do you plan to position IPHatch in the evolving startup ecosystem?

The long term vision is definitely being able to be on the global scene and having startups exit our program and make it big out there. That is definitely one of the key long term visions I hope to have because ultimately, we are incubating them for a substantial amount of time that we hope for that success. Having startups to exit or even be acquired can really show that IPHatch the program really works. We really have accelerated the growth of a startup to reach the kind of destination that they have and that they wanted to be at. That’s definitely one of it and of course, being able to bring this program to the global stage.

Claire Lim is the Head of Innovation and Partnerships at IPHatch. In her pivotal role, Claire's primary mission is to craft and implement the program's cutting-edge innovation and partnerships strategy. With fervor and dedication, she takes charge of identifying potential partners, cultivating and nurturing these relationships, and overseeing the program's diverse initiatives. Claire's passion lies in driving sustainable economic development, promoting entrepreneurship, and fostering vibrant community engagement across Asia and beyond. Her commitment to these values fuels her relentless pursuit of excellence in her endeavors.

Visit www.techshake.asia if you would like to know and connect more with IPHatch.