Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property

Continuing a discussion that we had yesterday that took place during the Software Developer Bill of Rights, we started to discuss the idea of Who owns the Code....the employer or the developer.

Contexts for Discussion

• Employee on Internal Software
• Consultant Companies for custom client software
• Independent Consultants for custom client software.

Conclusions

• Data is always proprietary for the customer / employer
• Consultants completely depend on the contract for the definition of ownership
  • contract should clearly define who owns the software
• Industry Dependency
  • Software Commodity (e-commerce)
  • Specialized Products (health care industry)
• Addendums are your friend.
  • You can always adjust the contract in order to secure ownership of a piece of the code.