Companies often hire consultants, advisors, or independent contractors to create a range of new and original products for them. These products may include business plans, marketing plans, training materials, informational documents, technical guides, software, websites, designs, drawings, research reports, databases, symbols for advertising campaigns, etc. Both the company and the independent contractor must be careful when entering into a contract to reasonably address questions related to intellectual property rights. For example, if the contractor or advisor provides several different designs or logos, and the company accepts only one of them, the question arises: who will own the intellectual property rights to the remaining objects?
Patents: In principle, in most countries, a company that hires an independent contractor to develop a new product or process will own any patents unless otherwise agreed upon. Generally, this means that if the contractor does not have a written contract with the company to transfer those patents, the company will not have ownership rights to the inventions created, even if they paid for the inventions.
Copyrights: In most countries, freelance authors have the copyright to their work unless they sign a written contract to transfer those rights. If, and only if, there is such a contract, the company contracting the author’s creative work usually owns the intellectual property (but the author retains moral rights). In cases without a contract, the person paying for the creation of the work will have the right to use the work for the purpose it was created. For example, companies that have paid independent contractors to build their websites may be uncomfortable to learn that they do not own the product created under the contract. This means, for example, that the companies may not alter the content or that anyone can request permission to do so from the contractor.
Different rules or exceptions may apply to photographs, films, and sound recordings created under a contract.
Industrial Designs: If a designer signs a contract to create a specific design, once again, in many cases, intellectual property rights do not automatically transfer to the contracting party and remain with the independent designer. In some countries, the contracting party will own the rights to the design only when they pay a fee for it.
