IP Consideration for Tech Companies

With tech companies playing a massive role in the economic generation, these companies must understand multiple considerations that they must be cautious about. These considerations arise in multiple forms for a company. With IP forming a major role in the company wealth generation, the company must ensure that such IP issues are met perfectly so that the company can have maximum output and wealth generation.

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Enforcing your IP

The IP is recognized in different forms under each jurisdiction. Some form of IP such as trademark and copyright does not need to be registered but some form such as patent needs to be registered. As a lawyer, we tend to advise that the registration of your IP is of utmost importance since it affords multiple rights to the owner which assist them in their enforcement. In case federal law permits the registration of trade secrets and confidential information, it must be registered as in the case of the United States. But in case, the federal registration does not permit the information registration, it is highly advisable that the company must deal with internal information very cautiously so that the information is not leaked. At places, the protection of this information is enforced through contractual obligations among the employers and employees. The company must understand the best protection of its IP and how it can leverage the protection in the business to create value.

The business must establish itself as a brand which must be in a sense which can provide the distinctive nature of the business in the market. The registration of the name must be done in the trademark registry. The name that is registered in the corporate directory is not deemed to be the trademark registration hence, it cannot be used freely. The corporate registry does not put any wholesome check on the name as the trademark registry does. Corporate registries also do not consider common law trademark rights, and so a business or corporate name could be approved by a corporate registry even though the mark as used is confusingly similar or even identical to an unregistered trademark used by a competitor. To address this, it is advisable that the company must have a fluent search on the database to not create any risk of infringement.

Ownership

It is important to understand the ownership or possession of IP in case of any such contract with a third party. If there is any contract with the third party for the development of any IP, the parties must be clear with the terms. Owing of intellectual property is not automatic until and unless any agreement specifies so. Law in multiple jurisdictions holds that the first owner of the invention is the inventor and likewise, the first owner of the copyright is the author of the work.  So applying such law, any third party developing the particular IP in absence of any written assignment for assignment of the IP, can enforce its right over the said IP since the development of IP was done by him. To ensure that such a problem does not arise, an expressed assignment agreement must be there which must specify the transfer of ownership of the IP from the third party.

Companies dealing with open-source must understand the risk associated with it. “Open source” software refers to software with source code that anyone can inspect, modify, and enhance.  In general, open-source licenses grant users and developers permission to use open source software for many different purposes, and some of them allow users and developers to use open-source software to do anything they want.  Open-source software licenses are popular with entrepreneurs in many industries because they are fast, easy to use, encourage collaboration, and, best of all, they are free.

The terms of open source must be made very clear as per the open-source licensing. Such licensing must make the parties clear regarding the terms and obligation of use. The terms must stipulate, as can be seen in the copyleft license, that any modification of the IP must be there on the condition that the source code of that modification must also be released. This sharing of modified source code must be made free of cost as the previous source code was made available so that continuity is followed.

Author: Saransh Chaturvedi an associate at IP & Legal Filings, in case of any queries please contact/write back to us at support@ipandlegalfilings.com.