You’ve had the breakthrough. In the quiet of the lab, after months of painstaking work, the data is unmistakable. You’ve created something new, something that works. It’s the foundational discovery your company will be built upon.
After the initial elation, a critical question quickly follows: Now what? How do I protect this?
For a quantum technology founder, this is one of the first and most consequential strategic decisions you will make. The path you choose will impact your fundraising, your competitive standing, and your company's ultimate valuation. The two primary tools at your disposal are patents and trade secrets. They are fundamentally different, and choosing the right one for your core innovation is crucial.
This article provides a simple framework to help you make that high-stakes decision.
Understanding Your Two Primary Tools
First, let's discard the legalese. In simple business terms:
- A Patent is a public bargain. You provide the government with a detailed, public blueprint of your invention. In exchange, they grant you a temporary monopoly—the exclusive right to make, use, and sell it for approximately 20 years.
- Pros: Very strong legal protection, creates a tangible asset for fundraising, signals defensibility.
- Cons: Expensive, slow, and most importantly, you must reveal your secret to the world.
- A Trade Secret is a secret advantage. It is any piece of confidential information that gives your business a competitive edge. You protect it by, quite simply, keeping it a secret.
- Pros: No time limit, no filing costs, protects processes and know-how that can't be patented.
- Cons: Offers no protection if a competitor discovers it independently or reverse-engineers it; vulnerable to employee leaks.
The Decision Framework: Ask These Three Questions
When that breakthrough happens, run it through this three-question filter.
1. Can It Be Kept Secret? (The Reverse-Engineering Test)
This is the most important question. If a competitor could buy your product (once you have one) and figure out the innovation by examining it, a trade secret is nearly worthless.
- Lean towards PATENT if: Your innovation is a tangible object with a specific structure, like a novel qubit design, a unique resonator, or a new type of material. These can eventually be seen with a microscope.
- Lean towards TRADE SECRET if: Your innovation is a process. For example, the precise, multi-day calibration routine that makes your system perform 10x better, the specific recipe for purifying a material, or a proprietary software algorithm for error mitigation. These are incredibly difficult to reverse-engineer.
2. How Fast Will It Evolve? (The Pace of Innovation Test)
The patent process is a marathon; it can take years from filing to grant. You must ask if your innovation will still be relevant by the time it's officially protected.
- Lean towards PATENT if: The innovation is truly foundational and likely to be part of your architecture for 5-10 years. A core qubit architecture or a fundamental fabrication method are good candidates.
- Lean towards TRADE SECRET if: The innovation is a clever trick that gives you a 12-month advantage. A specific software optimization or a pulse sequence that will likely be superseded by your own better version next year is best kept as a secret. Protecting it with a slow-moving patent is a waste of resources.
3. What is Your Primary Goal Right Now? (The Strategic Value Test)
Your IP strategy must serve your immediate business goals.
- Lean towards PATENT if: Your primary goal is to close a Series A funding round. A patent application is a tangible, defensible asset that you can put in your pitch deck. It signals to investors that you have a legally protectable invention and have taken steps to de-risk their investment.
- Lean towards TRADE SECRET if: Your primary goal is to maintain a performance lead over competitors in the next 1-2 years. In this case, protecting the execution know-how—the "secret sauce" of your performance—is far more important than signaling to the market.
The Hybrid Strategy: The Best of Both Worlds
The most sophisticated strategies are rarely "either/or." You can, and should, use both tools. A common and powerful approach is to patent the core architecture (the "what") while keeping the complex fabrication and calibration techniques that make it work at a world-class level as closely guarded trade secrets (the "how").
This hybrid approach gives you a strong, public-facing asset for fundraising while protecting the difficult-to-replicate know-how that drives your actual performance advantage.
This framework is the starting point for your IP journey. Building a truly defensible company requires a multi-layered approach that goes even further.
