Module 6

Ownership, licensing and exploitation: employees and contractors, assignments, kinds of licence, open source, competition limits and IP in deals

Intellectual property is valuable mostly because it can be used by someone other than its creator: sold, licensed, shared and borrowed against. The commonest legal problems are not about whether a right exists but about who owns it and what others may do with it. A software company finds that a freelancer who wrote its core module never assigned the copyright. A founder finds that the logo was drawn by a friend. A start-up discovers that a library it used in its product carries a licence that forces it to publish its own code. This module sets out how ownership starts, how it is transferred and licensed, how open-source and public licences work, where competition law steps in, and what a careful lawyer checks before a business buys, invests in or lends against IP.

General education on intellectual property law, using invented businesses, people and figures. It states common principles in simplified form and does not describe any one country’s law, which differs and changes; rules on registration, ownership, infringement and remedies are strict and local. It is not legal advice. Consult a qualified lawyer in the place that matters.