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I wonder how can we invent a product in Lebanon while being protected by copyright and patent internationally.
If you think your product can reach a good popularity worldwide should you have a Lebanese or US lawyer for example to protect you from knock offs?
You can go over mentoring route, as some startups going, Sehnaoui was leading such idea, they can suggest how it's better to do.
Usually they register offshore in UK, unfortunately seems many products easier to market if they pretend to be UK made.
Maybe you can make and market product from Lebanon, but can have offshore in UK just for protecting copyright and etc.
I’m facing the same problem, but I say don’t worry about knock-offs, no matter who may copy you, you should be able to shine better light on the audience than your competitors.

Anyone knows where I can find a product designer/engineer as well as a micro-electronics engineer here in Lebanon?
Electronics in Lebanon -> Innovo, i don't know other skilled guys. http://www.innovo-lb.com/
I work by myself on electronics as well, but i'm overloaded at the moment, in best case will work on new projects from next year.
The advantage they have in the US is that they have tons of factories ready to try the product, here...of course not in China for a prototype as it will end up on aliexpress without even knowing it :)
3D printers are a good solution but overpriced here
22 days later
infiniteloop wroteI wonder how can we invent a product in Lebanon while being protected by copyright and patent internationally.
If you think your product can reach a good popularity worldwide should you have a Lebanese or US lawyer for example to protect you from knock offs?
As someone who has been participating and mentoring in the current start-up ecosystem, I can vouche for Al Yafi Group's work on patenting. If you want, PM me your email so I can send you their contact info alongside some presentations they did during my stint at Flat6 Labs.

I can say this though, while most startups register abroad for less tax brackets, more crowdfunding opportunities, and prestige, you can easily register your startup as S.A.L or S.A.R.L and still get an international patent here locally. You should also diffrentiate between trademark as a brand name and patent for the actual product. You usually have to do both. Patents are expensive though (just fyi).

Also, note that your product will not depricate in value if a knockoff comes into the market. Take for example an iPhone and a Chinese knockoff. The quality is different and the brand name of Apple makes it more valuable. So can your product. If in case someone does knock off your core design, you can legally pursue them only if you have registered the design under a legal patent. There's also the more affordable form where you just declare you filed for a patent (will dig exact name for it). It gains you a year before needing to issue a full patent. However, if you don't complete the patent application after a year, all your rights for the patent declaration falls until you apply again.

As for rapid prototyping, we have a lot of local opportunities for that. You can start at our makerspace Lamba Labs Beirut Hackerspace where we can help you out with figuring your best options (free of charge, we're a community based organization). We may even be able to support you on some hardware free of charge as well.

Having said that, keep an eye on our FB page. In November we will be holding 2 sessions on vital signs of startups (what you need to know on starting a startup from ideation to bootcamp to local opportunities in terms of accelerators), as well another session Show & Tell style on local opportunities in rapid manufactury.

If you want to visit the space, this Saturday we have a geeky Halloween party starting at 4pm. Also Wednesdays we hold Build Nights between 7:30pm and 10pm.

PM for any questions or contact me via email at contact@lambalabs.com or phone at 70854780.

Sorry for the long post.