Introduction
Intellectual property assignment transfers an employee or consultant’s work product to the entity.
An employee or consultant usually executes an agreement assigning any intellectual property developed during employment: confidentiality and Inventions Assignment Agreement (CIIAA) or Proprietary Information and Inventions Assignment Agreement (PIIAA).
4 Types of Intellectual Property
Consider four critical intellectual property assets:
Patents
A patent allows the owner to produce, market, and utilize their innovation while restricting others from doing so.
Patents typically last 20 years, but some just 14. Anyone can duplicate, build, or sell the innovation after this period. Any attempt to avoid this time limit would violate the patent.
To get exclusive rights to make, sell, or utilize your invention, you must submit specifications that a “practiced artist” can duplicate. Patents include four requirements:
- Patentable subject matter (as defined by Congress and the courts).
- It must be “new.”
- It must be “helpful.”
- Your suggestion must be “unobvious.”
Three types of patents can be filed:
- Patent Utility: Utility patents are given for valuable techniques, machinery, manufactured goods, the composition of materials, or other novel and practical advancements.
- Design patents: include any novel, original, or decorative design. It’s valid for 14 years.
- Plant Patent: Inventors, discoverers, and reproducers of asexually reproduced plant varieties are issued patents. It’s valid for 20 years.
Trademarks
Trademarks are any word, phrase, symbol, design, or combination that identifies products or services. “Trademark” covers trademarks and service marks. Service marks are designated for company-related services.
Owning a trademark doesn’t imply you own the words or phrases, only how to use them for specific goods or services. An online retailer that uses the Nike swoosh on t-shirts or sneakers is an example. Infringement.
To receive trademark protection, pick the items or services it will cover.
Copyrights
Copyright infringement is a well-known IP issue.
- Paintings
- Photos
- Music
- Audio recordings
- Computer programmed
- Books
- Blogs
- Movies
- Architectural works
- Plays
Titles, names, brief phrases, slogans, recognizable symbols or designs, typography, Colours, and ingredient lists aren’t original. Copyrights protect how you communicate a message or expression, not ideas, methods, systems, concepts, processes, and discoveries.
Companies can possess copyrights through “works made for hire” or works generated during employment.
Trade Secrets
Businesses have many sensitive documents, but not all are trade secrets. A trade secret is a non-public knowledge that is kept confidential.
It must also bring economic benefit to the knowledge possessor that would be lost if others knew it. State and country trade secret laws differ. Consider what information you wouldn’t want your competition to have.
Consider pricing, marketing, and manufacturing procedures.
Is IP Assignment Important?
A legal contract is needed for an enforceable IP assignment.
- An Offer
- Accepting the offer
- Valid considerations differ
According to the Second Statement of Contracts, consideration “must be ‘bartered for’ and not ‘illusionary'” (77).
IP Assignment Agreement: What Is It?
An IP Intellectual Property Law Assignment is the linchpin. IP agreements safeguard company inventions. However, they can transfer IP ownership case by case.
An IP transfer agreement is another name. It assures that if a person develops an intangible creation while employed, the corporation still owns it.
An IP Property Assignment Agreement comprises these sections:
- Definition of IP
- IP Assignment
- Future IP Assignment
- Covenants
- Representations and Warranties
- Indemnification
- Assumption of Liabilities
- Severability
- Confidentiality
- Termination
- Survival of Certain Provisions
- Successors
- Governing Law and Venue
- Amendment
- Entire Agreement
- Counterparts
- Heading
- Waiver
Who uses IP assignment agreements?
An IP assignment can safeguard anyone’s original innovations.
IP assignments include:
- A new software firm
Sometimes developers preserve IP rights.
-
Existing manufacturing companies
Might have their workers sign an Invention Assignment Agreement. This grants the firm ownership of employees’ intellectual property.
-
Newly contracted personnel
May be employed to research or develop new products.
Intellectual property assignments are challenging. These are often multi-layered, complex agreements that need discussion.
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