A VC in Vacationland

U.S. Patents granted, 1800–2004. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

According to The Boston Globe, Omer Dar and his team at SocialBox knew they had a great idea: a 21st century photo booth that lets users edit pictures and take video and doubles as a corporate marketing tool. But Dar feared the young company could not afford to protect its idea with a patent, until he discovered SmartUp, an online service that connects fledgling businesses to patent attorneys offering discounted legal advice.

“Finding out about this website basically saved us because it made [getting a patent] affordable,” said Dar, who cofounded SocialBox last year.

Avady designed SmartUp as a middle ground. A step-by-step questionnaire helps an entrepreneur generate a draft patent application, then a real attorney offers advice, usually by phone or e-mail. For $350, a SmartUp-affiliated lawyer makes suggestions about how to improve an application. For $600, the lawyer will make revisions, and for $900 will write the entire application, from start to finish.

Even at the highest level of service, that’s a steep discount. Avady said his research found legal fees of $2,500 to $5,000 to be common.

Though Avady has moved to Atlanta and based his company there, SmartUp is becoming a go-to partner for start-up incubators in Massachusetts, where Avady grew up.

The company signed an in-kind sponsorship agreement with MassChallenge in June and is working with Bolt, Future Boston, and Running Start.

“I went to every single accelerator and incubator I could in Boston — went to their events, spoke to their people to see if they would be interested in our service,” Avady said. “The response was amazing. They knew that their members had this need.”

For now, SmartUp has four attorneys on its roster: one in Boston, one in Silicon Valley, and two in Atlanta. They accept reduced fees, Avady explained, because “this is a step to start building a relationship with clients that are probably going to get a lot bigger soon. You know, Google was a start-up at one point.”