ILLUSTrATIoNS: VICTorIA PArK 18 BCBusiness AUGUST 2015
Whose Bright Idea Is That?
D - I - Y M a n a g e m e n t
Intellectual property lawyer Christopher Scott of oyen Wiggs Green
and Mutala LLP and Georg reuter, partner at richards Buell Sutton LLP,
discuss who owns what information in the workplace by Felicity Stone
PSST. CAN yOU
KEEP A SECRET?
"If you have trade secrets—things that
are secret and derive value from their
secrecy—then take positive steps to keep
them protected," says Scott. Compa-
nies should enter into condentiality
agreements with their contractors,
employees and third parties to
whom condential information
and trade secrets may be dis-
closed, recommends Reuter. Adds
Scott, "It can be advantageous to take
additional precautions as well, such as
training your employees."
PROTECT yOUR mOST
ImPORTANT ASSETS
"In many companies, particularly those
with a technolo‡y or IP focus, your
employees are your most valuable assets,"
says Reuter.¢"When these employees walk
out the door, your assets may be leaving
with them."¢To avoid these risks, he says,
managers should encourage retention
of key employees and ensure that the IP
assets developed and managed by these
employees belong to the company.
PROTECT yOUR
GOOd NAmE
"Distinguish between a trademark
registered with the Canadian
Intellectual Property O£ce and
a corporate name (for example,
registered with the B.C. Corporate
Registry)," says Scott. "The regis-
tered company is a much weaker
protection of your name, and it
really only stops other people from
registering the same company
name—and then generally only in
the same province," says Reuter.
"If you had a Canadian trademark,
you'd generally have Canada-wide
protection."
yOU bOUGHT IT—
bUT dO yOU OwN IT?
If you pay an independent contractor to
design your website, "in Canadian law,
the contractor owns the copyright in
that website unless they agree, in writ-
ing, to assign the copyright," says Scott.
"Consider also obtaining a waiver of
moral rights, which are additional, non-
transferable rights held by the author of
a work." And make sure your domain
name is registered in your company
name, not the name of the employee or
consultant handling the registration.
bEING PUblIC dOESN'T
mEAN IT'S UP FOR GRAbS
"Just because something is publicly
available doesn't mean it's in the pub-
lic domain," says Scott. "Copyright
enables the owner to prevent people
from copying even if the copyrighted
work is widely distributed." That
means that if you copy a photo oœ
of Google Images and put it on your
website, let's say, then the owner of
the copyright for that photo might
sue. "This happens pretty regularly."
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