Offensive intellectual-property work asks what a business can stop others from doing. Defensive work asks the opposite question: what could someone stop this business from doing, and what would it cost to find out the hard way.

The exposure is usually accumulated rather than chosen. A name adopted without clearance. Third-party components pulled into a product without anyone reading their licenses. Material produced by a contractor whose agreement never addressed ownership. Content, images or data used on the assumption that availability implies permission. Each is relatively cheap to check beforehand and expensive to unwind after the product ships.

Clearing that ground is the first half of the work: searching before a name is committed to, tracking what third-party material a product actually incorporates and on what terms, and keeping records of how work was created — which is what independent creation is proved with if it is ever questioned.

The second half of the work is being ready for that adversarial letter. A demand is an assertion, not a finding. It may be well founded, overstated, or aimed at a market the sender does not occupy. Working out which — and whether there is a defense on non-infringement, on the strength or validity of what is asserted, or on the sender's own conduct — comes before deciding whether to change any conduct or product, and long before agreeing to pay.