Re: Intellectual Property in Network Design
I like this take on it... thanks David. ...Skeeve *Skeeve Stevens - Founder & Chief Network Architect* eintellego Networks Pty Ltd Email: skeeve@eintellegonetworks.com ; Web: eintellegonetworks.com Phone: 1300 239 038 ; Cell +61 (0)414 753 383 ; Skype: skeeve Facebook: eintellegonetworks <http://facebook.com/eintellegonetworks> ; Twitter: eintellego <https://twitter.com/eintellego> LinkedIn: /in/skeeve <http://linkedin.com/in/skeeve> ; Expert360: Profile <https://expert360.com/profile/d54a9> The Experts Who The Experts Call Juniper - Cisco - Cumulus Linux - Cloud - Consulting - IPv4 Brokering On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 2:27 AM, David Barak <thegameiam@yahoo.com> wrote:
On Thursday, February 12, 2015 7:38 AM, Skeeve Stevens < skeeve+nanog@eintellegonetworks.com> wrote:
Actually Bill... I have two (conflicting) perspectives as I said.... but to clarify:
1) A customer asked 'Can you make sure we have the IP for the network design' which I was wondering if it is even technically possible....
2) If I design some amazing solutions... am I able to claim IP.
It is worth differentiating between the design itself and the documentation of said design. The latter is clearly and totally IP, and you could present that to the customer as "theirs": theirs and not yours - that is, you would use different templates, naming conventions, etc. if you created from whole cloth a similar design for a different customer in a similar situation. They may be attempting to make sure that their network documents don't show up as examples or other presentations for other customers.
As an example, an architecture document or a network assessment would be covered by copyright law, and as such could be assigned to the author, the company which created it, or could be "work-for-hire" and assigned to the hiring company, depending on the contract in question.
As to an amazing design solution, the USPTO has rules for that - you could patent your design, but in our line of work that'd be a high bar given prior art.
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Skeeve Stevens