How do we make certain all IP rights stay with us during product development?

Question

After some initial prototyping we want to start developing a market-ready version of our wearable device. Besides our core team of three, we are planning on involving a designer and, if necessary, will have some of the coding done by a freelancer. We would like to make sure from the start that we own all rights and Intellectual Property regarding the product, its name, the software etc. What's an airtight strategy to launch the product development?

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Answers: 1 public & 0 private

Steven weinrieb
Patent Attorney

Firstly, anyone who actually contributed to the development of the device is to be considered an inventor. You need to have the inventors sign an assignment agreement whereby the rights to the IP go to your company. And include the fact that they cannot disclose the device to anyone outside of the company. For those who are not inventors, but basically "workers", have them sign a non-disclosure agreement. Then proceed to file a patent application, even a provisional patent application, as soon as you can. That should protect your IP rights with respect to the company and also from any unintended/unwanted public disclosure.

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