Intellectual Property in Network Design

Fri Feb 13 00:43:14 UTC 2015

Hi Skeeve,

In a sense, you are an artist as network architecture is an art in itself.
It involves interaction with time, processes, people and things or an
intersection between all.

As an architect, you analyze customer needs and design a solution using
your creative ideas to address their business driven needs today. In some
ways, this is easier because creating a
business centric network provides you some parameters to design within.
You might mix and match technologies that will suite one business better
than the other but it's your creative ideas. It's not secrets of their
trade that you replicate or takeaway. You are master of the trade and you
design a solution that works best for them.

While some design principles for application service provider, enterprise,
carrier or ISP have similarities, no two network is the same.

If you don't claim IP on the design or publish company names you've done
the designs for, under what jurisdiction can they claim what you designed
is their IP? What if their requirement changes in 6 months from now?

If a architect designs a road system in a particular way, does it mean
he/she can't design another road again because of IP issue?

I would tend to disagree.

It may not answer your questions but I hope it provides some content to
support your case :)

Regards,
Ahad

-----Original Message-----
From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-bounces at nanog.org] On Behalf Of Owen DeLong
Sent: Friday, 13 February 2015 6:46 AM
To: William Herrin
Cc: nanog at nanog.org
Subject: Re: Intellectual Property in Network Design

The extent to which this is technically feasible and how one must go about
it actually varies greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

Something well worth considering given the number of jurisdictions already
mentioned in the current discussion.

There are a number of possible concerns that the customer in question may
be attempting to solve with their request. The first step is to identify
which concern(s) they want to address.

	1.	Do they want to make sure that they have sufficient rights
in
		the design that they can replicate/modify/otherwise use it
		without further compensating you?

	2.	Do they want to make sure that you surrender your rights
in
		the design so that you are not able to provide an
identical
		solution to another customer in the future and/or that you
do
		not use their design as an example or case study for your
		marketing purposes?

	3.	Do they not really have a concern, but someone told them
		that it was important to ask this question?

	4.	Do they want to make sure this treated as a "work for
hire"
		with all the legal implications that caries?

There are probably others that I am not thinking of at the moment.

Owen

> On Feb 12, 2015, at 08:18 , William Herrin <bill at herrin.us> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 7:36 AM, Skeeve Stevens
> <skeeve+nanog at 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....
>
> Hi Skeeve,
>
> IANAL but I play one when I can get away with it.
>
> This is usually covered as, "Contractor agrees to provide Customer
> with all documents, diagrams, software or other materials produced in
> the course of the contract. Contractor shall upon request assign all
> ownership of such materials to Customer. Contractor shall retain no
> copies of said material following termination of the contract."
>
> So yes, it's technically feasible.
>
>
>> 2) If I design some amazing solutions... am I able to claim IP.
>
> If it's copyrightable (a "solution" may be), then as a contractor (not
> an employee) the copyright vests in you. If the contract states that
> you agree to transfer it to the customer then you breach the contract
> if you don't.
>
> If the contract says the copyrights are theirs then at least that part
> of the contract is probably void. Barring W2 employment copyrights
> nearly always vest in the individual who first put them in to a
> tangible form. There are explicit and narrow exceptions in the law.
> Preface of a book. That sort of thing. It's unlikely you'll run afoul
> of any of them.
>
> Lawyers get this wrong shockingly often. IP doesn't vest in the
> customer and can't be transferred until it exists. The creator is a W2
> employee. The contractor agrees to transfer it following creation.
> Just about everything else is void.
>
> If the contract doesn't say one way or another then the lawyer who
> wrote it was asleep at the wheel.
>
> However... the techniques used to produce the solution usually
> classify as ideas. You may be bound under non-disclosure terms to not
> share ideas produced for the customer within the scope of the
> customer's system but ideas are never property. You can't own them and
> neither can the customer.
>
> Regards,
> Bill Herrin
>
>
>
> --
> William Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com  bill at herrin.us
> Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/>