[Phpwm] Intellectual Property Agreements

[Ian Munday]

Depending on the value of the contract, I would get in touch with a  
solicitor.  We used someone at Young and Lee in Birmingham, but  
they've since left to go on maternity leave.

We survived for some time without taking legal advice on smaller  
contracts, thinking we knew roughly what was reasonable, and what  
could and could not be enforced.  When we got some bigger contracts  
we paid in some proper advice and it was revealing to find out  
actually what would and would not be enforceable under English Law.

Regards,

Ian


On 21 Sep 2007, at 11:39, Bronwen Reid wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Anyone been in this situation?
>
> One of my clients has asked me to provide a letter assigning them  
> all ownership of the work I've done for them.
>
> Now, I'm quite happy for them to own the application in question  
> (basically a shopping cart with extra knobs and go-faster stripes),  
> and I understand their concerns (what if I get a job with another  
> company? what if I approach one of their competitors?) but I want  
> to be able to reuse code.
>
> There are also several paragraphs of boilerplate employee agreement  
> which I've been asked to include, and am not very happy about.  For  
> example, the company owns any "improvement in procedure"
>
> "Any discovery, invention, improvement in procedure, trade mark,  
> design or copyright work made, discovered or produced by you in the  
> course of your employment in connection with or in any way  
> affecting or relating to, or capable of being used or adapted for  
> use in connection with, the business of the Company shall be  
> disclosed to the Company straight away and be the absolute property  
> of the Company."
>
> Basically I want to say "you own the final application, I won't try  
> and sell it to anyone else or take it away from you, but I can and  
> will reuse techniques, code etc. in other applications for other  
> people"
>
> How do other people deal with this?  Anyone want to recommend a  
> solicitor?
>
> Bronwen
>
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