Questions regarding all matters related to ownership and rights to intangible assets such as art, software, designs, etc.

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Can I use company logos for my game? [duplicate]

I was wondering if I had permission to use company logos without the companies' permission in a logo quiz game. I'll make sure to specify that the logos are copyright their respective owners. If the ...
4
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2answers
93 views

How do I prove that its all my IP

I'm involved in a deal where an industry organization is attempting to white label my software. Their Chairperson is a lawyer, so they are cautious on the legal stuff. They want to be absolutely sure ...
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2answers
39 views

Developing a product/service as a result of requirements of existing employer

A is currently employed at company X which in turn is a vendor for company Z. A realized that certain aspects of running the business for Z which X is failing at can be productized/offered as a ...
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6answers
322 views

Sticky IP situation

We are in a sticky situation, that is no ones fault but our own. We had approached a developer to join our startup. After showing him the project he was excited and decided to join. Our mistake was ...
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3answers
116 views

How much equity should I give investors

I am seeking a $2M investment to take my patented product to next level. I have been told my product is unique and can be used in a variety of industries by both commercial and residential users. ...
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1answer
335 views

There's a troll in my space - now what?

I've spent the last 3 months full-time building an alpha version of a web app, and developing a business plan for it. The alpha version is ready to launch. Recently I've stumbled upon the fact that ...
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2answers
115 views

building an application at work, want to spin it into a business

I am building a custom sales portal at my place of employment, a large company. I would like to start a saas business that uses the same features I am building for the custom project at work. I want ...
3
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1answer
65 views

Research if patent holder is a troll

I've recently discovered a patent for a product that's in the field of the product I'm working on. The patent itself has zero direct resemblance to the product I'm working on, but there are "early ...
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2answers
52 views

Who owns the Intellectual Property, Copyright and Patents created by Technical Co Founder?

I will be joining a new start-up as a technical partner. Other two partners are business administration role. I will be the one who will program everything from scratch and build the new web based ...
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1answer
23 views

Can I resubmit under my company an abandon patent that was under my name?

If I submitted a patent under my personal name and it was abandoned, can I later resubmit or rather submit it under my company name?
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2answers
37 views

Implementation partners-protecting source code

I have an existing SAAS platform and I am in the process of working with multiple implementation partners or vendors for some enhancements. How do I make sure my source code is protected? Some of ...
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2answers
73 views

Can a Greek letter be trademarked (for use within the scope of a particular service offering)?

Let's say we offer an approach to better dental hygiene and we call it the change™ dental hygiene solution and we represent our change™ solution with the Greek delta (Δ) symbol. Hence, we might also ...
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2answers
104 views

Software Contributions to a LLC Partnership

I have a 33.33% stake in an LLC partnership, which was made with cash contributions. I have since developed software with an associate who is not part of the company that we would like to sell as ...
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2answers
42 views

Contract employee and IP in a not so related business

If I create an application for a client and I am employed as a contactor to the client by a contracting firm in a different capacity, who owns the copyright?
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3answers
114 views

Does the company own all my ideas?

A company has the following contract. http://www.uploadimage.in/di/93QO/one.png http://www.uploadimage.in/di/N8UR/two.png Does this mean if one is working on something in their free time while ...
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2answers
37 views

How can one establish authorship of content?

For a startup creating content for syndication, what is an effective way to establish that the content was indeed created by the startup and not those receiving it? For example, one could print out ...
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2answers
68 views

Does generic use of a trademarked term (e.g., Klout) constitute infringement?

My understanding is that trademarks afford protection when used as an adjective to represent goods or services, but they do not afford protection for generic usage of a trademarked term and only ...
1
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3answers
81 views

How should we compensate a non-founder in a new web-based business who is critical to the launch of the business?

We are in the very early stage of organizing and launching a new web-based business. There are two co-founders - one who is CTO and one who is CEO. In addition, we will be including a third person ...
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4answers
591 views

How Do I Prevent Somone From Stealing My Idea On KickStart

I have a great idea for a new product and I am thinking about launching it on Kickstarter, but I have one major problem. I am afraid that someone will steal my product and/or accuse me of stealing ...
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1answer
166 views

What percentage to give UI/UX designer co-founder? [duplicate]

This is a general question for company shares: My partner and I have an equal stake in our company. We want to bring in a designer since both of us suck at UI. We have one in mind. Since we own the ...
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2answers
93 views

Is an open source prototype a bad idea?

I'm building a prototype for a web/mobile application. The goal is to collect user generated content, let user rate it while at the same time being entertained and do something interesting with it. If ...
0
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1answer
52 views

Legal issues of a user-pic based app?

I'm planning on creating a mobile app based upon the idea of allowing users to take self-portraits and having it shared in a dynamic public gallery (for say, dating purposes, or whatnot). Let's also ...
3
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3answers
219 views

Is consulting work subject to my day-job's intellectual-property clause?

Disclaimer: I'm not seeking legal advice here, I will naturally seek actual legal advice before I make any decisions. I'd just like to know the lay of the land, if anyone can help. I'm in the ...
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2answers
96 views

Acquiring IP from liquidators

Over 3 years ago the development company I was working for went into liquidation owing ~$500K. There wasn't a lot gained from the sale of the assets and as far as I am aware, the liquidators still ...
0
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1answer
74 views

Legal implications of selling board game mods & accessories for existing games?

I am looking to create, manufacture and sell modifications for existing board games that other people have made. Purely as an example: I might create a new set of tokens to be used with the ...
0
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1answer
92 views

How should I protect myself from intellectual property theft before I pitch this game to Scopely?

(For the impatient, the main question is at the bottom of this text.) I was reading this article and a couple of others about Scopely, a game development company responsible for the creation of the ...
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3answers
198 views

If you are a creative studio, who owns employees ideas that they come up with whilst in your employ?

We are a creative studio who depend on new ideas and new IP to survive. Many of our staff (naturally) are quite creative as well, and as such don't want their best ideas taken by the studio - where ...
2
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2answers
174 views

Terms of agreement with a co-founder after split-up

I recently quit working with my co-founder. We had started a software business together and had agreed on a certain profit share. But shortly after the launch of the apps, we had to split because he ...
0
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2answers
169 views

Is internship considered as “work-for-hire” in the US? Who owns the software intellectual property rights created by an intern with no contract?

I was an intern in a small furniture company for over year where I had an idea to develop an integrated software solution that would help any company of the same type get organized. A verbal agreement ...
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2answers
373 views

What is the law covering the intellectual property rights of software developed during internship/employment without signed contract/agreement?

I am a software engineer who "invented", and developed alone an integrated ERP software solution over the past 2 years. I got the idea and coded much of the software as intern at small wholesale ...
4
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1answer
212 views

Should I get investors to sign an NDA before sharing my idea?

I have an idea for a company and I want to share it with potential investors. I'm a bit concerned about my ability to protect the idea. Should I get them to sign an NDA? Would that scare investors ...
2
votes
1answer
253 views

Employer permission agreement to do contract programming work in spare time

I'm in discussions with a programmer to do contract work for my startup. He works full time programming at a Massachusetts company whose business is unrelated to mine and my project would be done in ...
4
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3answers
168 views

How Much should I except to spend registering Intellectual Property patent?

I know it might vary depending of kind of product. I'm planning to register a very unique Intellectual Property internet service patent Let's suppose the world doesn't have search engine yet, and I ...
2
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1answer
87 views

On working with consultants

I have been asked by many startups to help them with their core machine learning IP Unlike outsourced software development, machine learning is difficult to outsource or even to specify because it ...
4
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2answers
186 views

Employee who contracted programmer to complete project. Who owns intellectual property?

I was hired as an employee to integrate data which initially no projects existed that required programming. It became clear that the method needed to complete one project was going to require some ...
8
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3answers
391 views

Somebody got a trademark for a domain I own. I am planning to launch my service in a week

I have a domain name, (lets call it XYZ.com) which I have owned for about an year and a related service that I have been developing for about an year too. I just searched the trademark database, and ...
0
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2answers
92 views

What things an entrepreneur should get copyrighted before approaching VCs

What things can be copyrighted of a startup before approaching VCs? I have a very fast growing online venture for which I am going to approach VCs. But I want to make sure they can't use my idea and ...
3
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1answer
184 views

How have University IP licensing terms for tech startups changed since Google licensed PageRank from Stanford?

What were the details of the IP licensing agreement between Google and Stanford for PageRank? For example, what PERCENTAGE equity and royalty rate did Google give to Stanford? Were there ...
6
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5answers
397 views

Startup project - hide from employer or cooperate with him?

I am a software developer. I have a good idea and I'd like to create a startup. I am planning to invite one or two of my colleagues as co-founders. I am concerned about the relationships with my ...
1
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2answers
125 views

Am I worrying too much about my IP?

I've spent the better part of the last several years developing a product/algorithm, and although I lack the time/funds to do an exhaustive patent search, I'm 99.99% certain that the algorithm is ...
1
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5answers
220 views

Protecting works for being able to prove later “I've done this on this date”

How to protect digitalized works for later prove we've had this and that on that date ? Example: John Doe wants to protect his works on 2011 to be able to prove in future (let's say 2022) that he has ...
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1answer
68 views

Whose property is the product?

I recently entered a government founded start-up that was planning a major switch in the product (after I entered we started doing a completely new product indeed). Each person in the project has a ...
0
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0answers
73 views

How to specify, describe external external project in agreement with Employer? For example in agreement for doing project in spare time? [closed]

Assuming employee (software developer), would like to make an agreement with employer about doing some external project (software) in spare time. Problem of doing projects in spare time is mentioned ...
3
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1answer
198 views

Example of Agreement (template) with Company for doing stuff in spare time

According to related topic: If I'm working at a company, do they have intellectual property rights to the stuff I do in my spare time? (and related : Intellectual Property and Side-Projects in ...
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2answers
44 views

Intellectual property evaluation

How do I get my intellectual property evaluated? I have a framework and a software code for a project I am working on. I talked to a lawyer, with a proper value tag he said that I can invest in a ...
2
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3answers
123 views

Protection Help Bringing a Social-Media Platform to Indiegogo

I'm a 19 year old Canadian, and I've created a unique platform in regards to social media. I'm currently alone in this project and I feel the need to hold it close to me; as I've heard horror stories ...
3
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3answers
121 views

Technology Accelerator or Bootstrapping

I have a few ideas for a company, and plan to get started sometime this fall. I know of an accelerator that focuses on this vertical, and I have contacts there so reaching out to them would be pretty ...
6
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4answers
275 views

If I write code with someone just together, are they entitled to equity in my startup?

If a friend casually wanted to hack with me and we wrote something that took off, are they entitled to equity in my company?
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0answers
32 views

Can employers claim intellectual property even if employee has an LLC? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: If I'm working at a company, do they have intellectual property rights to the stuff I do in my spare time? I have my own LLC. I created it during my time of ...
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3answers
84 views

Legality of usage of Competitor's Scripting Language

We have a software which supports scripting. One of our main competitors has a software which works in the same way. I wonder if it is legal for our software to support their properiatery scripting ...

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