Lisse’s IP Strategy that Keeps Its Services Growing after PMF
Lisse started working on intellectual property (IP) with Global Brain, and now IP has become the company’s focus. As Lisse has recently recruited an IP expert, we asked the company about the recruitment process and key points in pursuing IP activities.
Written by the Universe Editorial Team
Lisse Co., Ltd. (Lisse), a legal tech startup, offers the AI-based contract review support service called “LeCHECK” and other services. While the company had never been engaged in serious IP activities, it was quick to file patent applications related to GenAI and contract review over the last two years and has gained a certain competitive advantage. It has also succeeded in hiring IP personnel in an effort to insource the IP activities despite the limited supply in the job market.
We sat down with Miki Fujita, CEO of Lisse, Shintaro Onikura who is in charge of IP, Corporate Planning Department of Lisse, and Takayoshi Hirai, Global Brain (GB)’s IP team member to ask why Lisse is focusing on IP and what its impact is on business growth as B2B SaaS startups tend to put off IP activities while focusing more on sales and customer success.
(The names of departments and roles may have changed after the interview.)
“We had not been able to do anything” with IP
──What led you to start taking care of IP, and what were the issues that you had before starting the initiative?
Fujita: We were doing almost nothing to address IP before Series A. We were focused on developing products to sell and improving business results, and only about 20 members worked at the company. It was difficult to spend time on IP, to be honest. Around that time, GB, known for its strong hands-on support, decided to invest in Lisse, and its IP team including Hirai-san started helping us.
Hirai: As our in-house team basically conducts due diligence before the investment by ourselves, we knew Lisse’s issues on IP to some extent at the time of investment. Normally, B2B SaaS startups like Lisse tend to put off IP activities compared to sales and customer service. However, as competitors were actively pursuing IP activities, perhaps because they are in the legal tech industry, we decided that we needed to support Lisse’s IP as soon as possible. This is how the hands-on support started.
Initially, when we started the support, we were considering filing patent applications centered on Lisse’s product implementation, but since other countries were ahead in the legal tech field, it was difficult to aim for a broader patent. I had many discussions with CEO Fujita and the management team to find something that could be Lisse’s “powerful weapon” in terms of IP. That was when the GenAI boom occurred.
I remember how Lisse members immediately came up with many ideas on combining its products with GenAI (LLM). What we then did was to support Lisse in filing patent applications for the ideas before implementing them into the product. We were able to file GenAI-related patent applications consecutively ahead of other companies as Lisse members came up with a lot of creative ideas.
Fujita: Most of the GenAI patents we filed at that time has been registered, and they have become Lisse’s powerful IP. Hirai-san not only helped us with filing applications but also gave us many requests for features. Our staff resonated with many of his ideas, saying, “That’s a good idea! Maybe we can make it if we combine GenAI.”
Hirai: Because of my job, I often look at contracts, so I simply talked about the features I wanted from the perspective of an AI contract review services user (laugh). I was surprised at how quickly Lisse turned my requests into concrete ideas and verified them, but thanks to their quick actions we were able to smoothly move on to patent applications.
Around that time, the GB IP team was **approaching almost all of the startups we were supporting with the question, “What do you think you can do if you combined your current product with GenAI?” By asking this question, we were trying to file GenAI patents for our startups as soon as possible **. We could see that GenAI was going to become a trend, and we could easily anticipate that every company would be applying for patents using GenAI, so we wanted to make sure the startups we were supporting could stay ahead of the game.
How Lisse successfully overcame the challenge of recruiting IP talent
──After that, Lisse pursued recruiting IP personnel. Why did you decide to insource the IP activities?
Fujita: As Hirai-san taught us about IP and we deepened our understanding, I felt more and more that we should be able to do it by ourselves.
At that time, I had an opportunity to ask a business owner about what it is like to have IP personnel in the company. I strongly realized again that having an IP team in the company will broaden the company’s strategies. This is why I became more willing to recruit IP personnel.
We already knew that there were not many IP professionals available in the market and that recruitment would not be easy, so we were unable to take the last step. However, we decided to take the plunge and consult with Hirai-san to move forward with the recruitment.
──How did you proceed with the recruitment activities?
Hirai: The GB IP team’s support can be divided into three steps.
- Referral from recruitment agencies and GB IP team’s connections
- Preparing job descriptions and defining recruitment requirements
- Attending interviews as well as supporting the startup in attracting the candidates and making the final decision
I supported Lisse in all the three phases.
As I was supporting Lisse in carrying out the IP operations, I believe I was able to get a clear picture of the recruitment requirements in terms of what kind of experience would be suitable for Lisse. After discussing with Lisse, the goal was to find someone who could do not only general IP operations but also use their knowledge as an IP professional in the development of legal tech products and enjoy taking on a wide range of challenges.
As a result, Lisse hired Onikura-san through the recruitment agency we introduced to Lisse, so we were very happy. We also looked at Onikura-san’s past patent application results and articles he had written on his company’s blog, and he was exactly the kind of person that Lisse was looking for. I also attended the interview to attract him by talking about Lisse’s fascinating aspects from my experience in working on Lisse’s IP**.
──Which aspects of Lisse’s IP were attractive to you?
Onikura: I was attracted to the fact that I can work on IP-related issues closely with the management team. At my previous job, I was part of a large organization with around 1,000 employees, but as the company grew rapidly, I found myself spending a lot of time on things like governance and rule-making for the operational infrastructure, and the distance between me and the management team grew. In this situation, I became more and more interested in exploring IP activities that would directly contribute to the business and new approaches to IP that had never been done before. Now, at Lisse, I can directly receive ideas from the members and think together with the management members about how to convert them into IP that can contribute to the business. This is the environment I was attracted to.
Fujita: Onikura-san is frequently communicating with the CTO and me. He also talks with sales and marketing members and gathers ideas for IP. This is very helpful.
Aggressive IP creates business “chances”
──I heard that Lisse started working on IP activities after Series A. What do IP activities mean for startups that have reached a certain level of maturity and are close to PMF?
Fujita: Not to mention the “defensive” IP activities that prevent patent infringements, “aggressive” activities” are also very meaningful to discover the ideas that will blossom into new business in the future.
Onikura: When it comes to IP activities, reading ahead is vital for patent filing. You need to move faster than other companies, so I would like to constantly collect ideas from other members.
I think that everything begins with people. Products and IP are ultimately the result of human imagination and thought. Everyone has ideas in their heads that have not yet taken shape, but sometimes they just are not expressed.
It would be a waste to let the seeds of great inventions and products stay dormant. That is why I want to talk to as many members as possible and draw out the ideas they have in their minds. I am also working to create an IP culture within the company through activities such as internal education. I hope to carry out IP activities in a broad sense, by making visible and adding value to the intangible assets buried within the company.**
Hirai: For a company to successfully pursue IP activities, it is vital to create an environment where employees can come up with new ideas and to develop a structure to capture those ideas. This is one area where having an IP expert in the company would be an advantage, as it is difficult to cover this with only GB’s IP support. Lisse is an ideal example because they are able to conduct IP activities by themselves.
──Fujita-san, you worked on the IP initiatives from scratch. When you look back on your experience, what would be the key points in conducting IP activities?
Fujita: I believe it is vital to not just obtain patents but also understand other companies’ patenting goals and sort out what to do next.
At first, I only had a vague idea that “I had to start working on IP.” But thanks to GB’s support, I now have a clearer view of exactly what area of IP I need to work on, based on comparison with our competitors. There is a big difference between these two states of mind.
Before Onikura-san joined the company, Hirai-san used to help us understand the very difficult field of IP, by using words we could understand instead of technical terms. I think that is why we were able to take next steps and actions, such as applying for patents related to AI and hiring people.
Aiming for IP activities that “look a couple of years ahead”
──I suppose your company will further work on IP going forward. Tell us your outlook and plans.
Fujita: If we start to see a future where we offer more products and expand the business overseas, then of course we would like to work on expanding the IP team.
We would also like to provide products that support IP. There are many people in the legal profession who also work in IP, so we would like to develop features that are even more convenient to use. I hope that Onikura-san will contribute to such initiatives.
Onikura: I have two big visions. One is to create robust patents that will enable us to further grow Lisse’s business. As I mentioned earlier, the only way to obtain good patents is to outstrip competitors by speedily coming up with ideas. We need to come up with ideas several years in advance and then shape them into good patents at the right moment. I want to continue working on this part of the process, which you could call “patent design”.
The second point is to create a community for people who handle legal affairs and IP alone by themselves in their companies. I like this kind of activity, and I hope that by connecting with people in legal affairs and IP through this community, I can indirectly help my company acquire customers.
I would like to explore various initiatives to search for my ideal image of an IP personnel, which no one has achieved yet, and establish a model that can contribute to the business.
──How does the GB IP team want to utilize this achievement of supporting Lisse?
Hirai: This Lisse’s case was an ideal example of “becoming able to work on IP activities by themselves through the recruitment of an IP expert”. I hope that we can replicate the results of this case at other startups we support.
The recruitment process went very smoothly this time thanks to the efforts of Lisse. However, it usually takes about a year to recruit IP personnel like Onikura-san. For this reason, it is important to have a long-term IP planning and strategy that takes into account the entire journey of the company until it achieves an exit, rather than just going with the flow. I believe that being able to quickly start working on strategy planning is GB’s unique strength which is made possible because we can identify IP issues early through due diligence and have close conversations with startup executives. I would like to expand our unique support while making the most of our advantages.