IP lawyers

ip_guys

Intellectual property
4 types of protection
  1. patent -compositions of matter, devices
  2. copyright - original expression (including software)
  3. trademark - source id/consumer goodwill
  4. trade secret - valuable, secret business

What is copyrightable?
  -original works, including software
-default rule is authorship = ownership (unless it's a work made for hire for your employer)
-author has exclusive right to reproduce, distribute, perform, display and modify the work during the author's lifetime + 70 years
  -if you write a program from scratch with all original lines of code, you own it

Licenses and 'open source'
  -license permits someone else to take certain actions with your code and restricts other actions
    -microsoft lets you use office, but gives no access to source code, so you can't reverse engineer, etc
    -code licensed under an open source license lets you redistribute and use in source and binary forms with or without modification as long as you credit original authors
    -hereditary open source lets you run, use, copy, distribute and modify, but prohibits distribution without providing the recipient a copy of the full source code
  -if you use someone else's code, you must do so in compliance with with terms of the license
  -shouldn't reverse engineer and bake Office into your project code
  -if you have grand commercialization plans, consider carefully use of hereditary code

For our projects, the code will likely be so intermingled that authorship of any single part will be impossible to determine

Who owns it?
  1. do nothing
    -default is that everything is so intermingled that each individual has the right to stop any other team member from using any part of it
    -you may agree to an allocation or end up fighting each other over it
    -the product may end up going nowhere if everyone can't agree
  2. agree that each team member has the right to do whatever they want without any else's input or oversight
    -team could agree that each member has teh right to freely use the entire product
    -compete on the merits of your commercial plan, but you may step on each other's toes
  3. assign ownership to one team member
    -you could all agree to assign your rights to one team member
    -the assignee would have the sole right to control the project
  4. assign ownership to a third party
    -each team member assigns rights to an entity
    -this is how founders in a startup typically do it
    -but question remains, who owns the entity and in what shares? Who funds it? Who manages the entity?

Other things to consider:
  1. If you assign your rights, what should you receive in return? Anything?
  2. If you assign your rights, make it clear that you will be presenting the project to outsiders
  3. The projects will utilize open source, which may reduce the value