The Value Within Your APP
More and more companies are now creating their own APPs that can be downloaded onto smartphones or tablet devices to provide a direct and interactive link between the company and the user of the APP. These APPs represent valuable company assets and there are some basic steps that companies should follow to ensure that these assets are protected.
1. Ensure All Copyright & Design Rights Are Owned By The Company
An APP is essentially a software programme and any original source code in the programme will be automatically protected by copyright as a literary work. Copyright does not prevent others from designing their own APPs to perform the same function, but it can be used to prevent direct copying of the programme behind the APP. Copyright in the APP will initially belong to the programme developer or software house that employs the programme developer unless it is transferred by a written contract signed by the developer/software house and the company. If a new business is being established between a team of individuals and one of the team is responsible for writing the source code for an APP, any copyright will belong to that individual team member unless and until there is a written agreement transferring a share of ownership of the copyright to other members of the team, or it is transferred into the new business. A written agreement should also be in place to cover any outsourced design work, such as designing a logo for the APP.
2. Register Your Trademarks
Take appropriate steps to protect the name of the APP and also the APP logo that will appear on the smartphone or tablet screen so as to deter competitors from developing their own APPs using the same or very similar name and logo. Character names in games should also be considered for protection. Trademarks can become very valuable over time and especially so the more successful your APP becomes.
3. Register Your Designs
Consider also protecting any graphical aspects of your APP including backgrounds, icons and Graphical User Interfaces. This provides a further layer of protection for the visual appearance of elements of the APP.
4. Use Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs)
NDAs are legal contracts between parties that want to share information in a controlled way. Having an NDA allows you to discuss the APP with another party, but restricts their ability to pass on the information to third parties. This can enable you to speak to developers or companies that may be interested in helping in the development of your APP, whilst providing a legal means of redress should they disclose the information without your consent.
5. Document Your Work
Keep detailed records of the development of the APP. This helps not only to provide a chain of evidence should you have to take action against someone who copies your APP, but also helps to establish the timeline and history of the development of your APP should you be accused of copying another company’s APP.
Contact Murgitroyd’s team of intellectual property experts to protect the value inherent in your APP.
Wendy Crosby is a qualified UK and European Patent Attorney and is based in Murgitroyd’s Aberdeen office.
For more information please visit www.murgitroyd.com
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article