Best way to protect IP when dealing with INTL software developer?
 

Hi,

Im having some software developed by a reputable company outside the USA. What is the best way to ensure they don't launch a competing program and how would I enforce the contract?

Best,

BJ

you cant...somebody in the company could give the code to his buddy outside the company and you would basically be left with no way to prove it in court...

1. Retain a lawyer in the developer's county
2. Have them formally assign any and all copyright for the developed software to you for the value received (payment and other consideration) have the lawyer do this
3. Have the lawyer you retain copyright your developed software IN THE DEVELOPER'S country.

The developer, however reputable he may be, will know you are using legal council in HIS country and would have easy access to his country's courts.

Now is it worth these added expenses? Your call ...
If it's possible -- get a patent.

its not worth it, unless you have million dollar idea.,

Thank you kindly

Development for the basic software is well into 6 figures, Ongoing updates and adding additional API connections who knows. Might be worth it :)

Baker & McKenzie have offices in the developers country. The Patent idea is great.

I don't mind going to court. Experience a new culture etc :)

Keep the 'secret sauce' in-house with your own development team and only outsource parts of the project that are not fundamentally part of the 'secret sauce'.

Also, as Barry mentioned, a patent if possible will be helpful.

I've considered this as well, the problem is the country where I reside and no matter how perfect a non-discluse/IP protection contract is, the court process would take up to and maybe more than 7 years.

I suppose that I could incorporate in the US, hire in house programmers where contracts would be much more enforceable.

Thanks for the idea.

You're in a difficult country for in-house development but you're a hop skip and jump from Australia/New Zealand - you could do in house development just a few hours by plane from where you live.

Yeah even if it is million dollar idea, these days it's not enough to have idea only, you also need to have sense for marketing. For example, Winkelwoss brothers which sued ZuckerBerg for stealing idea and won, if ZuckerBerg didnt do what he did, they would have shitty social network for which nobody would care and they probably would not make any money from it.

It might have sense only if it's really easy script/software, for example you figured out how to manually make money by let say spamming certain social network or sites or anything like that, but in that case is better to do either by yourself or by having local inhouse programmer which cannot escape easily.

you can retain a lawyer in any country you wish it makes no difference...how do you go about proving that person x from company y gave the code to buddy z? how do you prove x and z are buddies?... and z opened an offshore company in country w but you are suing him in country q from your own country r and his servers are in country k...

good luck with that...

I am 1 months USA, 2 Months SEA. Repeated for 8 years. Its the taxes I don't like (USA) as we are double taxed on income from abroad and income at home. And now There's FACTA. I wont go into details, but my bank here has to tell the USA how much I have.

But, there's easy ways to hide it and not illegal. Catch 22.

If I retained a lawyer in the development companies country, I could enforce the contract. I would own the code and patent, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_Cooperation_Treaty

BTW we are not buddies, its business.

and BTWx2 Ive been sued by Pfizer and lost in arbitration over a name. What im talking here is a bit more serious but my anus did dilate a bit when I got the letter from Pfizer (I was in central america)

The technical phrase for that is "the chilling effect" :thumbsup

Barry and AK gave some great advice. I hope you can work with it and your project is a success. Let us know if there is anything marketers can do after?

you are just wasting your time buying false sense of security... if someone wants to rip you off, they'll rip you off...

it's hard to enough to enforce a contract if it's in the same country, in another country, like crucifissio pointed out "good luck"...

what country is the developer in anyway?

India, but with a patent it would be in theory enforceable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent...ion_Treaty.png

I'd forget India, seriously. It's a path you don't want to go down.

The Long, Drawn-Out Fight to Regulate Software Patents in India | The Wire

Interesting article and food for thought.

The company in question is big, I think more than 300 employees and they work for around $20/hr and I was assured a team of 70, paid for milestones.

I am not the sharpest tool in the shed, but if Im first, I believe we could have a good working relationship.

This is a mainstream and fairly unique financial/pos/accounting software.

I have the money, but not the silicon valley type of money, nor do I want partners. So, it's a conundrum to say the least.

I have checked several of their references and they are good.

No risk no reward and first to market wins. Learned that in 2001 and all others were second place.

A reputable company or developer might think twice about marketing something they made for you exclusively. After all, they have a reputation to protect. They won't last long in business stealing others ideas.

I'm all for offshore development, I'm involved in projects that are partly offshore and deal with fairly decent sized client projects in various industries. However all everyone in the Intellectual Property space has been talking about the past few months is the risk of developing product in India if it needs protection.

Going back to what I said a few posts ago, try and keep the 'secret sauce' in-house and as close to your direct control as possible - but if you're going to develop something that's trying to be first to market with an idea that can be copied then India is the last place on earth I'd base the project.

A fairly big ISP/Telco in Australia just spent $70 million on customising a popular CRM to their enterprise and the work was done in India. Those customisations have now turned up in Europe priced in the mid $xx,xxx and the competitive advantage their sales team had in China disappeared overnight.

Until India sorts out the legal mess surrounding patents they effectively just don't exist for software, which makes enforcement out of the question because there's nothing to enforce.

I'd recommend joining some of the Intellectual Property (Software) groups on LinkedIn and asking the questions you're asking here. Just be ready for the stream of horror stories.

It's crazy, like 50 companies/people applied and maybe 5 we're verifiable and reputable. This was through upwork.com.

It's not the companies per se that you need to worry about - it's the individuals within them looking for their next leg up the ladder :2 cents:

BlueScope Steel stung by alleged corporate espionage

So many things to worry about, but going back to what "ruff" said, its a pretty bad idea if you work for a big company to screw over a client. The company would be destroyed online, and that would be the least of their problems.

I can't really provide any more advice than I already have. Be careful out there.

I do not know what your product is, but just developing a product is 20% of the work, the other 80% lies in adapting the product from your original idea to what the market wants and advertising and expanding your customer base....the other 80% is something they can not steal...

If I was you I would not waste money on fancy lawyers who will tell me everything I want to hear, but invest that money in advertising and/or development...pfizer has a physical product and a chemical patent and brand name and billions of $ and even then they loose:

google: kamagra <----indian jelly viagra


you have a piece of code and getting access to the thiefs servers will prove to be an impossible task for you...the moment he feels the heat he can move the server to the other side of the planet and you are back to square one...the only layer of security he needs is to pick up some lost ID in a library and he probably has everything he needs to be a complete ghost to you...

just develop and do your thing IMO

Pfizer's patent for viagra or any generic variation expires in 2020 in the USA. That is not to say you cannot find the generic version sold under the table at many overseas pharmacies.

Furthermore, the formulation of Viagra is not a trade secret, it never has been. Its a chemical compound.

The largest distributor of generic viagra in India got 30 years prision for shipping to the USA in 2004ish.

http://images.rxlist.com/images/rxlist/viagra1.gif

Lastly, I prefer to treat people I work with with respect both in salary and manners. I currently have 22 staff and most have been with me over 6 years.

I'd get the contract signed, from a lawyer in his country, it shouldn't cost too much. Contracts are like a lock on a door - help to keep honest people honest.

It could also be used in other ways such as shutting down their billing or affiliate relationship if they tried to compete.

kamagra is made by ajanta pharma...they are huge producers and pfizer lost to them...the guy that got 30 years in your example probably got busted for smuggling and continuing a criminal enterprise and not IP theft...

do you have a link for this story? I used to sell generic viagra from china back in the day, If you can find the story I would be very interested in reading...

in the very unlikely scenario that they decide to rip him off AND use their real name, a contract would be the end of them...but if they use a fictive name there is little that can be done...

Smartest move AND I can assure you if the idea is great you will be ripped off - Patent or not (been there myself).

Get to market fast and make what you can before the vultures come after you.

Split up the project to multiple coders that have no idea how they work when interconnected. For example, for an SEO project, you have one person creating templates, another creating content, another link building but they never talk to each other. Re-assemble the project and it makes a complete project, but always keep the individual coders off knowing what the entire project is.
WG

Hire a technical architect / project manager that you can have legal leverage over (i.e, someone in the states) and have him farm the "modules" out to your offshore developers for development.

Avoid working with Indian developers as there's a high chance their work will be junk. Some are great but it's VERY hard to find them. You'll have better luck and better code working with Russian or Eastern European teams.