Question
Hi!
In creating our software we have been working a lot with a diverse group of developers and outside programmers. Especially in the early days of our company, a lot of the work was done on the basis of "handshake"-type agreements. Later on we started using templates of employment contracts.
When bringing our product to the market now, could we maybe be facing issues concerning our intellectual property? How can we figure out if we retain all the rights to our software or at least what our exposure might be to the early developers?
Answers: 2 public & 0 private
According to most patent laws in most countries, anyone who had input into the development of intellectual property is usually considered to be an inventor and must be included in a patent application as one of the inventors. Your contracts should lead you to know who was involved in connection with the development of your various products/devices or inventions. An inventor then has a right to the intellectual property unless a contract has been established whereby the rights to the invention(s) belong to the company for which the particular employee works.
Employment contracts may be treated as "Work for hire" and so, the Intellectual Property Rights vest with the Employer even though the employees may be Inventors. For handshake type agreements, the IPR ownership by those persons may not be established and so, you need not bother.
However, you make a patentablity search on your software inventions and file patent applications wherever possible.
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