Ownership of intellectual property created in a working relationship follows the agreement rather than the invoice. An agency that designs a logo, a contractor who writes software, a consultant who develops a formulation, or a joint venture partner who contributes to a product, can each retain rights in what they produced unless the terms say otherwise. The gap tends to surface at the least convenient moment: a funding round, an acquisition, or the day a competitor copies the asset.
We draft, negotiate and review the agreements that settle these questions before they are tested. That covers the ownership layer, employment and contractor terms, development and collaboration agreements, assignments and joint ownership arrangements, and the commercial layer built on top of it, licences, distribution and supply terms, franchise and technology transfer arrangements, co-branding and merchandising, and the confidentiality provisions that protect whatever is not registered. Where a transfer or an approval for use has to be recorded with the Department of Industry, we handle the recordal as part of the same piece of work.
Where a business finds a gap in a position it has already built on, through an audit, a transaction or a dispute, we establish what it actually holds and put the chain of title right, by confirmatory assignment where that is available and by renegotiation where it is not. This work runs closely with our licensing, franchising and trade secret practices, and with corporate and commercial law where the agreement sits inside a wider transaction.