Development of a mechanisms for transferring deliverables and intellectual property rights

Obviously, in order to be able to protect intellectual property rights, first and foremost, it is necessary to possess these rights, as well as to have documentary evidence thereof. Sounds simple and understandable, but in reality a million and one unpleasant stories happen.

True Story No. 1

A client comes to a lawyer and says that he wants his contactor to transfer all intellectual property to the client. The lawyer bulges his cheeks, plays smarty pants for half an hour, names a couple of client companies, and basically convinces the client of his competence.

The lawyer draws up a contract and the acceptance acts to it. In the acts he specifies that the contractor is to transfer all intellectual property under the project "Facebook Killer" to the client.

About four months later a conflict ensued between the client and his contractor. The matter is taken to court and the client cannot prove in court what specific intellectual property had been transferred to him.

And why? Because the "competent lawyer" has no idea what a repository is, how to identify a specific part of the code and how to specify it in the acts.

True Story No. 2

A client, after a year of development, when the product was ready, demanded the transfer of intellectual property from the software development company. The development company has not obtained intellectual property rights from its developers because it’s failed to properly execute the contracts and acts. Some of the developers have already quit the company, a few with scandals. When the company approached the dismissed developers with requests to sign the acts of transfer, the requests were refused. The problem has not been resolved. The development company admitted that to the customer and suffered reputationally and financially.

Intellectual property is one of the main assets of an IT company and special attention needs to be paid to it. Intellectual property security is a process, not a result. That is precisely why, if you have questions about intellectual property and it does not matter what stage of a business deal you are at, writing the code or preparing for the release of the project, please remember that without the proper finalization of the deal, chances are that there will not be a good result.