Proprietary Software Protection

[Ashman]

Has anyone had any experience with custom software development particularly protecting it from being distributed by the foreign developers that code it?

Would the coder have a creative copyright on the unique code they write or is the copyright transferred to the person paying for the development?

 

[BenWalker]

I was involved in a SaaS start up few years ago. Part of the development was outsourced. To protect our self, we had them sign a NDA as well as assign all intellectual property ownership to the company. We also applied for a patent. At the time it costed around $15k for Aus only. I exited from the company but three years later they are still in the process of finalizing the global/other country patents. But even with all this, it doesn’t 100% protect your product. So if you are worried about the code being distributed, I think the only fool proof solution is doing it in house. I hope this answers your question….

 

[CousinVinny]

Remember that contracts and patents etc. only give you the *ability* to protect yourself. To actually protect yourself, you have take legal action and send in the lawyers which usually comes with a fair cost... If you don't trust them with your code, its probably better to not have them do the work...

 

[Cooper Mills DomainLawyer]

Has anyone had any experience with custom software development particularly protecting it from being distributed by the foreign developers that code it?

Would the coder have a creative copyright on the unique code they write or is the copyright transferred to the person paying for the development?

Make sure you get an assignment of the copyright from the developer so that you own what you pay for (in Australia the law requires copyright to be assigned in writing).

The complexity is that quite often you don't know whether they have provided the code to someone else. Also it is really not practical to litigate through the Courts of India - matters quite often run for 20 years (seriously!).

Often it is best to have critical parts of software developed locally in Australia, where you have a strong legal system and Courts that are prepared to protect your IP if the need arises.

Finally, for any serious software development it pays to have a properly drafted software development agreement (by someone who specialises in this area of law). The importance was highlighted this week when one of our clients won a Court case on the strength of the agreement we drafted for them.