Dear HN,I just saw the news that Intel is EOL-ing RealSense. Let's hypothetically say I have custom hardware prototypes, drivers, and some example AIs for a replacement product. So far, it's only been used internally where it enabled new AI research. But how would I go about turning the camera itself into a proper product?Obviously, there's startup incubators and venture capital firms. For example, I'm aware of Y-Combinator (surprise!) and the Sony Innovation Fund. The latter apparently seeks to invest into AI and Vision technologies. Also, those hardware prototypes just so happen to include Sony sensors.But if the product already exists and is proven to work and to solve a real and valuable problem, it would be quite risky to just show the solution to angels, investors, incubators, or VCs. On the other hand, nobody's going to "buy" the cat in the bag.My preliminary research suggests that it'll cost $10k to $20k to submit a patent draft. And one should probably at least cover hardware, software, drivers, and derived AI models, meaning probably around $60 to $80k in legalcosts. So that leads to a chicken and egg problem. You need money to pay for IP protection, but you'll need that IP protection to raise money.What's the solution?