For a hardware startup, a $3,000 provisional patent can be the only asset that survives failure. Compare K-Scale Labs and Rethink Robotics.
A $3,000 provisional patent is the difference between a total loss and a technology that outlives the company.
K-Scale Labs just collapsed. Its former COO published a post-mortem blaming overreliance on AI and underinvestment in hardware. The startup built custom actuators, tested locomotion gaits, and shipped prototypes at over $100K each. Real engineering. But it never filed a single patent. When the money ran out, the founders open-sourced everything. Investors got nothing back.
Rethink Robotics raised $150M and also failed. But Rethink had filed 220 patents. Within a month, Germany’s HAHN Group acquired the portfolio, relaunched the Sawyer robot, and signed a distribution deal with Siemens. Seven years later, Sawyer is still manufactured.
Same industry. Same ending.
The difference is whether someone spent $3,000 on a provisional filing.
If you’re building hardware, file the provisional. It costs less than a week of engineering salary, and it might be the only asset that survives.
Building hardware and unsure what would survive if the funding ran out? Talk to ipCapital Group about a provisional patent strategy that turns your engineering into a defensible asset.
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Written by
John Cronin