One-stop digital-asset protection and management.

A simple, affordable digital legal service for protecting and managing virtual possessions — copyright, trademark, infringement reporting, and digital-account management in one place.

Role Product Designer

Type Consumer Facing · Web

Year 2021

Deliverables Product Design · UI/UX

Consumers are replicating their daily physical habits in the virtual realm — assigning a growing value to digital assets and giving rise to new direct-to-avatar (D2A) business models. How people keep things is changing and awareness toward digital assets protection has increased. Unlike US copyright law, China enforces that whoever registers first owns the copyright. That means if you don't copyright your content, others could steal it and cause financial damage. VANGUARD is a one-stop station for virtual possessions management, providing an affordable and simple digital legal service to protect digital assets.

Protecting digital work in China is neither cheap nor straightforward, which leaves most creators exposed.

By the end of 2020, there were 522,000 certificated lawyers in China, but about 80% are concentrated in big cities. This leaves some people unable to find the right services and facing high expense to register a copyright.

The self-registering process is complex and time-consuming because of unfamiliarity.

VANGUARD is a one-stop station for virtual possessions management, which provides an affordable and simple digital legal service to protect digital assets and get the most of their value.

Not sure what you need?

VANGUARD defines all content able to apply intellectual property. Copyright, trademark, and design patent checking search are already finished.

Managing all contents in one place

Track where content has been published and authorize the right of use or delete content easily. Vanguard continues to scan the platform monthly to help users prepare copyright for new and available posts.

Understanding the value of your works

VANGUARD collects relevant data to ensure income from the platform is correct, advises on how to charge the licensing fee, and helps users better understand the value of their works.

Reporting infringements in one click

VANGUARD automatically collects data at scale to ensure there is no infringement. Once a violation is detected, VANGUARD notifies the user, and the content is taken down when the user files the report with one click.

Video calls with attorneys

When facing infringement, users can arrange a video call with attorneys to file a claim for damages or ask questions.

Digital accounts management

VANGUARD takes care of special arrangements for digital accounts when users decide to stop using them or can't control them — similar to power of attorney for digital accounts.

The research, strategy, and business modeling behind the service.

Built the target user, a digital creator, to ground every decision in real needs and behaviors.

Sized the beachhead and total addressable market to validate the opportunity.

Mapped existing legal services and their costs to find where Vanguard could simplify and undercut.

Defined how value flows between creators, attorneys, platforms, and customers.

Structured pricing across onboarding, IP protection, consulting, account management, and the asset-trading platform.

A five-year plan from prototype to a digital-asset trading platform, projecting the path to profitability.