Ask HN: How are early-stage AI startups thinking about IP protection?

Hi HN,

I’m researching how early-stage AI and health-tech startups think about protecting their innovations.

Traditional patents are expensive, slow and often misaligned with how fast AI products evolve. I’m curious:

Are founders filing patents early? Are you relying on trade secrets? Publishing defensively? Not worrying about IP at all? Waiting until revenue?

We’re collecting responses through a short 60-second survey to better understand real-world behavior:

https://forms.gle/8UAytkGNfge4GKrH8

If you’d rather just comment here, that’s equally helpful.

I’m happy to share aggregated insights back with the community.

Thanks, Shaheen