The physical AI race will be won in the patent office

Success in the physical AI race depends less on building the best robot and more on owning the technology that controls how it behaves, which can span hardware, software, AI models, and calibration methods. Robotics startups face a complex intellectual property landscape where they must decide early what to patent, what to keep secret, and how to protect core technologies before competitors do, as delaying this strategy can leave them locked out of their own mechanisms or blocked from the market. Rather than patenting every component, startups should identify one or two central innovations that are difficult for competitors to copy and then build a defensive ring of patents around them to make designing around the core invention too expensive to attempt. AI advancements now offer an opportunity to make quality patent protection more affordable for resource-constrained startups, addressing a significant barrier to implementing strong IP strategies from the outset.