What Would You Do? with Maria Boicova-Wynants

WWYD episode 10 What Would You Do If You Are Not Sure It's Worth Protecting?

“Should we protect this?” sounds like an IP question. It usually isn’t. Most of the time, it is a decision-making problem. Because when the answer is not obvious, companies tend to do one of two things. They either drift. “Let’s come back to this.” “We need more information.” “We’ll see how it develops.” Pure avoidance! Or another option: they overcompensate. They protect everything because uncertainty feels uncomfortable and filing something feels like doing something. Also hardly a strategy. But the thing is… It’s not easy! You are being asked to evaluate future value with present information. That will always be uncomfortable. On the other hand, waiting for certainty is not a plan. It is just letting TIME make the decision for you and time is a terrible decision-maker.  In this episode, I talk about what I would actually do when you are not sure something is worth protecting. I am not going to give you vague “build a strong IP portfolio” advice. Essentially, TL,DR: here is the practical recap: define the trigger  map the window  classify the asset honestly  make a real decision And the real decision is one of the following three: 1. Protect it. 2. Delay with intent and a review date. 3. Or consciously decide not to protect it. All three can be perfectly valid. What usually costs the most is leaving the question unresolved and calling that caution. And this is already episode 10 of What Would You Do? Now, I will take a summer break from a podcast, so you will have time to review the previous episodes, before I come back with Season 2.

WWYD episode 9 What Would You Do If You Could Win But It's The Wrong Game?

“Are we protected?” Is that the right question for the board to ask?  I don’t think so.  It sounds responsible, adult. It sounds like governance. And maybe… five or ten years ago, that question was enough. Legal checked the portfolio. The CFO checked the budget. And… The CEO moved on. But hey, not anymore.  IP is not just a downstream legal hygiene function. It never was, but nowadays it certainly isn’t. IP sits inside decisions about: -AI vendors. -Data and content assets. -M&A value. -Brand visibility in algorithmic markets. -Investor confidence. -Pricing power. -Competitive friction. -Exit leverage. And the majority of those decisions are NOT being made by Legal. They are being made by founders, CEOs, boards, investors and deal teams. Sometimes in rooms where the IP function is not even present. That is the danger. Not that the IP work is bad. The filings may be fine. The register may be tidy. The clearance work may be solid. The budget may even be perfectly reasonable. But the company may still be running…yesterday’s IP model in today’s market. The better question to ask is: “What is our IP doing for us?” Did it help us win a deal? Did it support pricing? Did it deter a competitor? Did it strengthen our investor story? Did it change the negotiation? Did it preserve optionality? Did it expose a risk before someone else priced it against us? If the answer is only a list of filings, that tells you something. You may have administrative IP. Useful. Necessary. Often important. But not yet strategic. In Episode 9 of What Would You Do?, I talk about the boardroom version of the sunk cost trap: This is not staying in a losing game, but staying in a (so far still) winning game that has quietly become… yesterday’s game. The hardest part is that nothing looks broken. Yet. The portfolio performs against the expectations that were set… years ago. And the problem is that the expectations have changed. Just… the world has changed.  The companies that notice this early will ask better questions before acquirers, investors or competitors ask them first.

WWYD episode 8 What Would You Do If You've Already Invested Too Much to Stop?

"We've come too far to pivot." Few sentences have destroyed more value. It sounds reasonable. Responsible, even. Until you realise that "we've already invested so much" tells you absolutely nothing about what you should do next. Past investments are facts; future decisions are choices. Yet companies keep funding underperforming projects, renewing irrelevant IP rights, defending outdated positions and chasing strategies that stopped making sense years ago. Why? Because abandoning a path is rarely just a financial decision. It is an identity decision. Walking away from a patent family, a product line, a market expansion, or a strategic initiative often feels like admitting that the earlier decision was wrong. And human beings are remarkably creative when it comes to avoiding that feeling. In Episode 8 of What Would You Do?, I explore one of the most expensive cognitive traps in business: the sunk cost fallacy. I talk about: • Why intelligent people fall for it • Why experience does not protect you from it • How sunk costs hide behind words like "vision", "commitment" and "long-term thinking" • Why the real issue is often psychological, not financial • The question that helps separate persistence from stubbornness Because there is a difference between staying the course and refusing to look at reality. And that difference can be worth millions. 🎙️ Episode 8: What Would You Do If You've Already Invested Too Much to Stop? Connect with me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariaboicovawynants

WWYD episode 7 What Would You Do If Legal Advice Conflicts With Business Strategy?

Three words that have killed more strategic momentum inside companies than most competitors ever will. “Legal says no.” Usually, legal is technically right and that is precisely why this gets dangerous.  I just released a new episode of What Would You Do? on one of the most dysfunctional dynamics in business: What happens when legal advice and business strategy collide? Because most companies handle this tension terribly. Some override legal completely and call it “moving fast.” Usually translated as: unmanaged risk sponsored by people who won’t still be around when the consequences arrive. Others defer to legal entirely. Momentum dies quietly. Windows close politely. Everyone feels responsible and nobody feels accountable. Corporate evolution at its finest.  But the most expensive version is the half-move. The company proceeds… cautiously. Enough to absorb the exposure. Not enough to capture the upside. You get the downside of action and the downside of hesitation simultaneously. An impressive achievement, honestly.  This episode goes deeper into something most organizations never properly design: The interface between legal and business. Because legal and business are not usually disagreeing about facts, but are simply optimizing for different definitions of failure. Legal sees downside concentration. Business sees opportunity decay. Both are real. Both matter. And “who wins” is the wrong framing entirely.  One of the most important shifts I discuss in this episode is changing the question from: “Can we do this?” to: “Under what conditions could we do this?” That single reframing changes legal from gatekeeper into architect. Suddenly the conversation becomes: * what changes the exposure, * what mitigates the downside, * what delay actually costs, * which version of the move preserves the opportunity while containing the risk. That is where strategic decisions actually happen.  I also talk about something companies systematically fail to document: The cost of NOT moving. Legal risk gets memos. Inaction risk gets assumptions. And then organizations act surprised when caution slowly becomes culture.  This one is for founders, executives, strategy people and anyone who has ever sat in a room where everyone suddenly forgot the original objective and started defending functions instead.

WWYD episode 6 What Would You Do If You Have to Decide... Without Enough Information?

People built entire organizational rituals to disguise discomfort as “more analysis”, or hide the fear of making a decision by the delays to gather more data.  PowerPoints multiply, research loops continue. Another expert gets invited into the room… And nobody notices that the market kept moving while the team was busy feeling responsible. Episode 6 of What Would You Do? is about one of the most expensive habits I see in business and IP strategy: “We need more data before we decide.” Sometimes that sentence is true. Rarely. And the problem is that damage is not immediate enough for people to notice it while it’s happening. And damage there is!  Because delay does not freeze reality. Competitors keep filing, partnerships are forming (without you!), markets keep assigning positions, while you are hesitating, narratives keep hardening, while you are still… thinking about it. Meanwhile your organization accumulates unresolved decisions like cognitive debt.  Eventually the team is no longer thinking strategically, but simply carrying unresolved weight from meeting to meeting.  We invented bureaucracy largely to avoid accountability while remaining technically employed.  In episode 6 of WWYD, I break down: • the difference between an actual information gap and a structural uncertainty problem • why “more data” often worsens decision quality instead of improving it • the hidden organizational cost of sustained indecision • the framework I use to make high-stakes decisions when certainty simply does not exist • why good decisions and good outcomes are not the same thing One line from the episode I say probably captures the core issue best: “The biggest risk is not making the wrong call. It’s drifting into one.” That distinction changes how you approach IP strategy, market positioning, partnerships, filings, pricing, leadership and….honestly… most things that matter. You will never have enough information and yet YOU HAVE TO DECIDE.