Protect Your Innovation with AI: Patents for Founders | Greg Carson

AI made it cheap to build almost anything. It also made it cheap to copy what you build. So how does a founder actually protect an innovation now, and where can AI genuinely help? In this episode, Shawn Ennis sits down with patent attorney Greg Carson of Carson Patents to walk the path from an idea to an issued patent as a series of go/no-go gates: what is worth protecting, how to judge novelty (it runs both ways), how to document an invention, why filing a provisional before you launch or demo is the key early move, and the one place AI drafting quietly goes wrong. The throughline: AI has lowered the bar to the front of the patent process, but a human attorney is still non-negotiable at the core. GUEST Greg Carson, USPTO-registered patent attorney, engineer, and CEO of Carson Patents. https://carsonpatents.com HOST Shawn Ennis, Founder & CEO of Citus Technologies. https://citus.cloud CHAPTERS 00:00 AI made building cheap, and copying cheap 00:00 Why "patents are for big companies" expired 00:00 Gate 1 — Should you protect it at all? 00:00 Gate 2 — Novelty runs both ways 00:00 Gate 3 — Documenting the invention 00:00 Gate 4 — File a provisional before you talk 00:00 Gate 5 — Claims, and where AI reaches its limit 00:00 Gate 6 — Prosecution, and why going it alone hurts 00:00 The honest counterpoint: a patent is not a business 00:00 Where this leaves founders (Replace the 00:00 markers once the episode is edited.) RESOURCES Carson Patents: https://carsonpatents.com Citus Technologies: https://citus.cloud Companion paper, "Protect Your Innovation with AI," from Citus Technologies. Subscribe to the Transformation Leaders Podcast for conversations with the people rethinking how work, technology, and law come together. #Patents #Startups #Founders #AI #IntellectualProperty #PatentLaw #Innovation #Entrepreneurship #TransformationLeaders 🎙️ New to streaming or looking to level up? Check out StreamYard and get $10 discount! 😍 https://streamyard.com/pal/d/50270087...