Practice area · 4 editions

IP & Technology

Who owns a brand, a design or a piece of software, and how someone else gets permission to use it or to sell it.

IP and technology work starts with two questions: who owns this, and who may use it? A junior checks which trade marks are registered and to whom, reads a licence or a software contract to see what it allows, and keeps a list of the dates by which a client must stop using something. Each task makes sense only once you have seen one deal work from start to end.

The first two editions here each follow one fictional agreement. In the first, a group sells one factory, and the buyer needs to keep using the group's brand and software for a while, and its drawings for good. In the second, a payroll software company lets an HR consultancy sell its app under the consultancy's own brand. Each agreement is attached in full, and you read each clause when the deal needs it, with a short test after each chapter.