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4a16397c
Community Member

IP project

Hello everyone; quick question. How does bringing in an outsider to help with an IP project affect the patent if at all? Thanks.

7 REPLIES 7
prestonhunter
Community Member

re: "How does bringing in an outsider to help with an IP project affect the patent if at all?"

 

This is an excellent question.

But it is not really an Upwork question.

Any advice you could receive in this Forum would be very limited.

 

You should post this question as a job posting on the main site at http://www.upwork.com.

 

State that you want to hire somebody for consultation only. Use an hourly contract.

You have a typo Preston...I think you are sending him to a parked domain.

re: "You have a typo Preston...I think you are sending him to a parked domain."

 

Whoops. Thank you. The correct domain name is of course: http://www.upwork.com

florydev
Community Member

I am not a lawyer.  My advice is, if you are really concerned about it, you should consult with one.  What's more any advice you receive would very wildly by the country you reside in, the country you are filing for IP rights for, and the country the person you worked with resides in.

 

That said if your intention is to file a patent in the United States, as I understand it, you have to file a patent with all the inventors listed.  So you would have to include anyone you have work on your product in a patent application.  You can however have your lawyer craft an assignment of the rights of the patent to your organization and have any parties you work with sign it.   You may similarly want to consider such an assignment of copyrighted material even though the Upwork users agreement does cover this (from memory if you pay the freelancer then it is yours).

 

One concern many clients have is they want to protect their idea.  If that idea cannot be expressed in a way that is either patentable, copyrighted, or trademarked then you likely cannot protect that idea.  What clients often turn to then is a non-disclosure agreement.  Again, not a lawyer, cannot speak to this.

 

As a freelancer, I have assigned both a copyright to work I have done, been part of a patent filing, and signed many NDA's.  I have never, ever, ever heard an idea yet I wanted to steal.  I can't imagine I ever will.  I have plenty of my own ideas and not enough time or inclination to pursue them.

Thanks Preston and Mark. It's really just a timing issue. I'm seeing an attorney later this week, so I'll hold off hiring anyone until I get some advice. Thanks again.

Good choice!

Keep in mind that legal considerations are only one small part of protecting intellectual property.

 

True protection of intellectual property also involves technology-based solutions.