Intellectual Property Cold-Start Interview

Intellectual Property Cold-Start Interview

Purpose

Conduct a structured, staged interview with an intellectual property practice group — led by a supervising attorney or authorized designee — to gather the information required to populate practice-profiles/ip.md. The skill walks through all eight profile fields in sequence, records every answer, and assembles a filled draft of the profile for the practice group's review and approval. It produces draft legal work product for attorney review — not legal advice and not a final configuration.

Use When

• A team is adopting AgentCounsel and needs to configure practice-profiles/ip.md for the first time.
• An intellectual property practice group is being onboarded to the library and no current profile exists.
• The library is being stood up for the first time and the intellectual property area is included in scope.
• A practice group wishes to revisit or rebuild its profile from scratch rather than make incremental updates.

Required Inputs

• A knowledgeable person from the intellectual property practice group — a supervising attorney or an authorized designee — who can answer questions about the group's jurisdiction, positions, escalation rules, and review requirements.
• Any existing playbooks, templates, source-of-truth documents, or standard-form documents the group already uses, so they can be referenced or cited in the profile.

Do Not Use When

• The group is actively working a live intellectual property matter. This skill configures the library; it does not support an open matter.
• A practice-profiles/ip.md already exists and is current. In that case this is a refresh, not a cold start — though the skill may still be used to rebuild the profile deliberately.
• No authorized person is available to answer. Do not complete the interview with guessed or inferred answers; record all gaps as [CONFIRM: ...] placeholders.
• The purpose is to handle a specific intellectual property matter (use the appropriate matter-level skill for that task).

Legal Safety Rules

• Produce draft legal work product for attorney review. This is not legal advice.
• Never guess or infer an answer to any interview question. If the interviewee cannot answer a question, record [CONFIRM: answer required from practice group] and move on.
• The filled profile is a draft. It must be reviewed and explicitly approved by the supervising attorney or practice group before it governs any AgentCounsel work product.
• Do not invent standard positions, clause preferences, escalation thresholds, or review rules. Record only what the interviewee provides.
• Do not include client-specific facts, client names, matter identifiers, or privileged details in the profile. The profile is a reusable group-level configuration, not a matter record.
• Do not state or imply that any threshold, position, or rule in the profile satisfies a legal requirement under any jurisdiction. Jurisdiction-specific legal obligations are for the attorney to verify.
• Flag every item the interviewee defers or leaves open with a visible [CONFIRM: ...] placeholder so the reviewer can see exactly what is unresolved.

Workflow

Stage 1 — Jurisdictions

Ask the interviewee:

• In which countries or territories does the group prosecute, defend, or counsel on IP matters most frequently?
• Does the group handle multi-jurisdictional filings (PCT, Madrid Protocol, EUTM, Hague System), and how is jurisdiction coverage allocated across the team?
• Are there sector-specific regimes the group regularly engages with — FDA-regulated technologies, export-controlled subject matter, semiconductor or AI-specific IP regimes?
• Are there jurisdictions where the group works only through specified foreign counsel, and how is that allocation tracked?
• Are there jurisdictions the group treats as out of scope entirely, requiring routing to specialist outside counsel?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item [CONFIRM: jurisdiction not yet specified].

Stage 2 — Client and Team Context

Ask the interviewee:

• Does the group represent primarily IP owners, IP users (licensees, defendants), or both? Confirm the default representation posture.
• What types of IP matters does the group handle most frequently — prosecution, litigation, counseling, clearance, licensing, open-source compliance, trade-secret protection?
• How is the team structured — registered patent attorneys / agents, trademark specialists, copyright counsel, technology specialists, paralegals?
• Are there client industries or technology areas that require special handling or additional sign-off — for example, life sciences, semiconductor, AI, software?
• How does the group coordinate with patent agents, foreign counsel, and specialist counsel (e.g., antitrust counsel for SEP/F-RAND matters)?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item [CONFIRM: client/team context not yet specified].

Stage 3 — Escalation Thresholds

Ask the interviewee:

• Which engagement types automatically require attorney review before reliance — clearance opinions, FTO opinions, validity opinions, infringement opinions, non-infringement opinions?
• Are there bar-date or statutory-deadline events (patent on-sale, public-use, priority filing windows) that always require escalation?
• Which industry-specific scenarios — standard-essential patents, F/RAND obligations, biosimilar disputes — require mandatory specialist involvement?
• What scenarios touching open-source license obligations require mandatory escalation — e.g., copyleft license uses, dual-license obligations, redistribution events?
• Who is the designated escalation contact for IP matters above the group's thresholds, and what is the expected turnaround?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item [CONFIRM: escalation threshold not yet specified].

Stage 4 — Preferred Output Style

Ask the interviewee:

• Should IP work product default to formal legal-opinion format, triage / first-pass analysis format, or both layered?
• What is the group's tiered framework for opinions — full reasoned opinion, short reasoned opinion, no-opinion triage? Where do clearance triages fit?
• Are there house style rules for marking preliminary findings, risk indicators, or open questions in IP work product?
• Does the group produce portfolio dashboards or status reports, and if so, in what format?
• Are there particular deliverable types — invention disclosures, opinion drafts, cease-and-desist responses — for which the group has mandatory format requirements?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item [CONFIRM: output style preference not yet specified].

Stage 5 — Source-of-Truth Documents

Ask the interviewee:

• What is the group's authoritative source of truth for IP strategy, clearance criteria, and opinion templates?
• Is there a written open-source policy or compliance program, and where is it stored?
• Does the group maintain a trademark watch program or a docketing system, and what document governs its operation?
• Is there a trade-secret protection policy or program documentation the group references?
• Are there sector-specific reference materials (FDA Orange Book, biosimilars patent dance procedures, semiconductor licensing standards) the group treats as authoritative?

Record answers and document names. Mark any unanswered item [CONFIRM: source document not yet identified].

Stage 6 — Standard Positions and Playbooks

Ask the interviewee:

• What clearance threshold triggers a full opinion vs. a triage assessment? How does the group calibrate that threshold?
• What is the group's default position on open-source license usage — permissive vs. copyleft, redistribution thresholds, attribution / source-disclosure obligations?
• What is the group's default trademark-watch posture — proactive opposition, defensive watch only, hybrid?
• What is the group's default trade-secret marking, access-control, and departure-process posture?
• Are there technology areas where the group will not opine without specific specialist review, regardless of urgency?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item [CONFIRM: standard position not yet specified].

Stage 7 — Attorney Review Requirements

Ask the interviewee:

• At what stage does attorney review become mandatory — any clearance triage that escalates, any opinion, any FTO assessment, any cease-and-desist response, any DMCA notice or counter-notice?
• Are there matter types for which attorney review is always required regardless of size — for example, any opinion, any matter touching SEP/F-RAND, any matter touching a registered IP right?
• What is the designated reviewer's role — registered patent attorney, supervising counsel, practice group lead, outside counsel?
• What is the expected turnaround for clearance triage vs. full opinion review, and how are urgent reviews handled?
• Is there a formal sign-off step before an opinion is delivered, a clearance is communicated, or a response is sent externally?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item [CONFIRM: review requirement not yet specified].

Stage 8 — Prohibited Assumptions

Ask the interviewee:

• Are there facts agents must never assume without explicit confirmation — for example, that a mark is clear, that a patent claim is anticipated, that an FTO opinion remains current, that an open-source license obligation has been satisfied?
• Are there scenarios where an agent must stop and escalate rather than reason through independently — SEP licensing, biosimilars, willfulness questions, ITC posture?
• Are there matter types where agents must never proceed beyond intake without direct attorney involvement — opinion-of-counsel work, validity opinions, willfulness opinions?
• Are there prior incidents — adverse opinions, sanctions, regulator inquiries — that should be encoded as explicit prohibitions for agents working on IP matters?

Record answers. Mark any unanswered item [CONFIRM: prohibited assumption not yet specified].

Stage 9 — Assemble the Draft Profile

Compile all answers into a filled draft of practice-profiles/ip.md, populating each of the eight profile sections. For every item that was not answered, insert a visible [CONFIRM: ...] placeholder with enough context for the reviewer to understand what needs to be supplied. Append a list of all open placeholders so the reviewing attorney can see at a glance what remains unresolved.

Output Format

Deliver:

1. Filled draft of practice-profiles/ip.md — all eight sections populated with answers from the interview. Every unanswered item is a visible [CONFIRM: ...] placeholder.
2. Open-items list — an explicit enumeration of every placeholder inserted, with the stage and question it corresponds to, so the reviewing attorney can resolve them efficiently.

Label the entire output: Draft legal work product for attorney review. Not legal advice. This profile draft must be reviewed and approved by the supervising attorney or practice group before it is relied upon.

Attorney Verification Checklist

• All eight profile sections have been reviewed by a supervising attorney or authorized practice-group representative.
• Jurisdiction coverage — including PCT, Madrid, EUTM, Hague, and any sector-specific regimes — is accurately recorded.
• Foreign-counsel allocation by jurisdiction has been confirmed.
• Opinion-tier framework (full opinion / short opinion / triage / no-opinion) is consistent with the group's current malpractice and engagement-letter posture [ATTORNEY TO CONFIRM].
• Open-source compliance program references are current [Verify current law].
• Bar-date and priority-filing escalation triggers are accurately captured and all related deadlines are marked [deadline verification required].
• No client-specific facts, matter identifiers, or privileged details appear in the profile.
• All [CONFIRM: ...] placeholders have been resolved or explicitly accepted as pending.
• The approved profile has been saved to practice-profiles/ip.md and its effective date recorded.
• A process for periodic profile review and update has been identified.