nanog mailing list archives
Re: Intellectual Property in Network Design
From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb () cs columbia edu>
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2015 15:56:29 -0500
On 12 Feb 2015, at 3:12, Skeeve Stevens wrote:
Hi all, I have two perspectives I am trying to address with regard to network design and intellectual property. 1) The business who does the design - what are their rights? 2) The customer who asked for the rights from a consultant My personal thoughts are conflicting:- You create networks with standard protocols, configurations, etc... so itshouldn't be IP- But you can design things in interesting ways, with experience, skill,creativity.. maybe that should be IP? - But artwork are created with colors, paintbrushes, canvas... but the result is IP - A photographer takes a photo - it is IP - But how are 'how you do your Cisco/Juniper configs' possibly IP?- If I design a network one way for a customer and they want 'IP', doesthat mean I can't ever design a network like that again? What? I've seen a few telcos say that they own the IP related to the networkdesign of their customers they deploy... which based on the above... feelsuncomfortable...I'm really conflicted on this and wondering if anyone else has come across this situation. Perhaps any legal cases/precedent (note, I am not lookingfor legal advice :)If this email isn't appropriate for the list... sorry, and please feel freeto respond off-line. ...Skeeve
You really need to get real legal advice. There are a fair number of deep legal issues here, as best I can tell (and I'm not a lawyer); there may not be anything that's actually legally protectable. Of course, the other party may have a lawyer who thinks the opposite, and there may or may not be enough
case law to come to a reasonably probable common answer.So--decide what your preference is (I tend to agree with Randy, but that's me), and learn what your lawyer thinks of the general question. Then ask the lawyer
what to do if there are conflicting opinions on whether or not it can beprotected, and to draft language consistent with your preference and that
belief for the contract. --Steve Bellovin, https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
Current thread:
- Re: [OT] Re: Intellectual Property in Network Design, (continued)
- Re: [OT] Re: Intellectual Property in Network Design William Herrin (Feb 15)
- Re: [OT] Re: Intellectual Property in Network Design Jack Bates (Feb 15)
- Re: [OT] Re: Intellectual Property in Network Design Valdis . Kletnieks (Feb 15)
- Message not available
- Re: [OT] Re: Intellectual Property in Network Design Larry Sheldon (Feb 15)
- Re: Intellectual Property in Network Design Skeeve Stevens (Feb 12)
- Re: Intellectual Property in Network Design Randy Bush (Feb 12)
- Re: Intellectual Property in Network Design Michael Butler (Feb 12)
- Re: Intellectual Property in Network Design Mark Tinka (Feb 12)
- Re: Intellectual Property in Network Design Randy Bush (Feb 12)