Playing Around INTA 2026: A Scenario Game for IP Lawyers

We’re in London at the INTA 2026 Annual Meeting, but we’re not doing a standard conference recap. We wanted to show how intellectual property work can be creative, inventive, and even fun, so we built THE INVENTIVE MINDSET GAME, a scenario game, and handed real IP lawyers a stack of tricky client prompts.

Each prompt forces a choice: do you follow the client’s exact instructions, take an inventive counseling path, bring in an AI assist tool, or throw a curveball and plan for the worst-case scenario. From a smart home invention to a viral character and an influencer launching a skincare line, we dig into the practical decisions behind patent strategy, trademark protection, and copyright, including how to think about prior art, claim scope, brand control, and what “commercialization” actually demands.

We also talk about the unglamorous but critical details that can make or break an IP strategy: picking the right trademark classes, avoiding coverage that doesn’t match the business, and sequencing filings when budgets are tight. If you’re a founder, creator, in-house counsel, or just curious about how IP law works in the real world, you’ll leave with clearer mental models and sharper questions to ask before you file anything.

Subscribe for more stories and practical IP insights, share this with a friend building a brand, and leave a review if the game format helped you think differently about IP. What would you choose first: safe, inventive, AI-assisted, or curveball?

Check out "Protection for the Inventive Mind" – available now on Amazon in print and Kindle formats.

The views and opinions expressed (by the host and guest(s)) in this podcast are strictly their own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the entities with which they may be affiliated. This podcast should in no way be construed as promoting or criticizing any particular government policy, institutional position, private interest or commercial entity. Any content provided is for informational and educational purposes only.

Transcript

Welcome And The Scenario Game

Speaker 12 0:00

Hello and welcome back to I ntangiblia I'm your host, Leticia Caminero, and we are reporting from the INTA 2026 Annual Meeting here in London. This episode, I wanted to make it differently. I wanted to show you how IP Lawyers can be creative, can be inventive, can be even fun. So I asked them to play a game with me, an scenario game. They have uh received a card in which they see what the client is asking them to do, and then they decide which kind of approach they would like to do. They either do exactly what the client wants, act exactly. They can also have the option of doing uh an inventive path of uh the counseling. And they can they can also think about well, maybe it would be better if I have assistance of a technology. So they have the option also of choosing an AI assist tool. And finally, they also have the option of uh choosing a curveball. So thinking about the worst possible scenario that can happen in this uh fake reality. So let's see what the amazing lawyers in Insta had to say about uh this uh inventive uh mindset game.

Patents For Smart Home Ideas

Speaker 3 1:24

Um I would try to actually find a solution and not abide by the client terms basically. I would look at how to how to uh underpin the the idea, the technical idea to you know have a more um sound idea of what it's all about. Um maybe use AI as well to kind of uh explore different options and alternatives uh to this technical invention, basically. Um you want to understand deeply what your what technically you're gonna be protecting for a patent application, and obviously, you know, you you might be leveraging AI to broaden up your ideas, to have a better idea on what's the state of the art, for instance, around uh this specific smart home patent device, but also like kind of get alternatives into the initial idea you have to broaden up you know the scope of protection you will get with your future patents. And actually AI can do that pretty well. Um so I would go for those two things, yeah.

Speaker 8 2:45

It's a mezcla deal of the client, but agregate a part of the invention, an ayuda that we can use in the camera to register the logo that they have to work for a federation international because I don't have to try to integrate in the market that have been.

Speaker 7 3:59

Okay, yeah, because so I have seen that he has only been thinking about copyright, and I have seen that he has already gathered a lot of recognition from the audience. So I would be thinking what other protection does he need to protect his brand. So I would already be thinking about how he's gonna protect his trademark to protect his brand, of course, copywriting, and I would also be thinking of how best he's gonna commercialize um this situation, right? Having you know got in a character that had exploded on social media already. So I would really be thinking about how best he can harness you know this particular talent.

Speaker 4 4:59

Okay es algo que disfruto mucho hace particularmente por una razón los clientes suelen ser novatos en el área de la protección de marcas. Entonces, me ha llegado a pasar que algunos clientes registran sus marcas para su servicio principal, pero también para servicios de telecomunicaciones. ¿Por qué? Porque van a tener una página web, pero no es un servicio que vayan a prestar. Entonces es muy fácil, si no tienes la asesoría adecuada, obtener registros in classes that no tengo la esencia de tu negocio. Totally, totally. Una marca is como el nombre of a persona. Nombre de bautizo, nombre proprio, ando. La marca would say the number property and the products or services at the whole se va application. Una cosa no puede funcionar sin la otra. Perfect.

Influencer Names And Trademark Risk

Speaker 11 6:20

About uh, like my question is about influential and expansion. So she's basically a famous and influencer, and she wants to launch uh a Steamcare line under a personal uh line uh name, sorry. So I will advise her to that it is profitable because she has millions of followers and she uh already has other businesses with her own name. So maybe the um the other activities, if there are other person involved in that, it can be quite tricky and uh also about like the distinctiveness of a name because I don't know if it's uh famous what like know about um uh famous trademarks, like it can be difficult. So that's what I'm gonna say. I don't think it's quite inventive. So yes, thank you for having me.

Filing Strategy And Full Coverage

Speaker 7:52

Pero no está claro. Entonces, ¿qué tenemos que hacer? En el caso de Argentina, tenemos que denunciar cuándo se realizó esa información, desde ya que le vamos a recomendar que lo patente. Vamos a contratar y vamos a tener al mejor técnico que lo asesore para reivindicar correctamente su invención. Porque lo más importante para él es que su invención esté registrada.

Speaker 1 8:28

Bueno, acá tenemos que asesorar a un cliente que es una firma que necesita protección en todo su merchant dancing, digamos. Y bueno, vamos a tratar de hacer todo lo posible para que esté cubierto con protección completa y no tenga inconvenientes con terceros. Elijo la morada. Vamos a asesorar bien al cliente, no vamos a hacer lo que el cliente quiere, el cliente nunca quiere gastar plata, siempre quiere únicamente registrar la marca, pero nuestro cliente necesita varios protecciones. Tenemos derecho de autor para registrar el contenido de su obra, porque es una radio, un programa de radio. Then we have la protección de sus marcas, porque su marca tiene un diseño muy novedoso, alguien registra. And copyright, por supuesto.

Speaker 6 9:25

In this specific scenario, I would pick two.

Speaker 5 9:28

I would pick inventive path and curveball. Why? Because uh this is an indie in the studio, so they have uh restrict like restrictive means, but they want to scale globally, and that can be uh very costly and not effective for what they want to do. So I would advise them to first do it nationally and focus on that and then think about scaling later. I think that might be a potential core. So we can go another route as well because if it's a distinctive character in a game, maybe you can go copyright as well.

Speaker 6 10:00

So that's what I was thinking.

Speaker 10 10:09

Inventive path, no corball, no, invented path. Okay, because I'm gonna work with the direction of preventive, and what I did of the evidently in a point specific where they can solution the things after exploding a bomb. And legitimately for what initial actions and how to use registrations, because I'm very conscient of that empreended have a economic for real actions.

Speaker 2 11:18

Okay, perfect. So that means that you will go a bit beyond what uh the client is asignanos.

Speaker 9 11:35

Ah, cómo la curva, a ver por qué escojo la fatalidad porque en este caso in específico, debido a que tuvo un proceso que fue como mess up un poco desordenado.

Where To Watch The Full Video

Speaker 12 12:01

Thank you for playing. Gracias por jugar. Thank you for listening to this flash episode. If you would like to watch the full interviews and the full episode on video, please go to their YouTube channel Intangibilia. See you next time with more stories and more IP.