Re:CrunchPad Federal Lawsuit Filed; Some Additional Thoughts
by grellas on Friday December 11, 2009 @02:40PM
(#990297)
From what I can see, the story is far too murky to make any intelligent observations about third-party IP rights at this point.
Generally speaking, if a third-party contractor did work on the project, that party could potentially have IP rights to its work, but not if it did so as a work-for-hire and assigned rights to whoever retained it. If there were no work-for-hire or IP assignments, then any contractor that might have done software development or hardware design could potentially assert infringement claims if its IP is used without benefit of a license agreement to the party using it.
Without further details, though, it is impossible to assess this.
Generally speaking, if a third-party contractor did work on the project, that party could potentially have IP rights to its work, but not if it did so as a work-for-hire and assigned rights to whoever retained it. If there were no work-for-hire or IP assignments, then any contractor that might have done software development or hardware design could potentially assert infringement claims if its IP is used without benefit of a license agreement to the party using it.
Without further details, though, it is impossible to assess this.