Software ownership must be traced through employee, agency and developer agreements, written assignments of economic rights and the licences of all open-source components.
Who owns the code?
Delivery of source code does not automatically transfer every IP right. Written terms and development records should address economic rights, employee works, agency contributions and pre-existing code.
Maintain an open-source inventory
Record dependency, version, licence, source and use in a software bill of materials. Notice, licence-text, source-offer or share-alike duties depend on the licence and distribution model.
SaaS and distribution differ
Device distribution, hosted SaaS, app-store release and development-only tools can lead to different licence consequences. Copyleft effects should be assessed from the licence text and technical integration, not assumptions.
Contract and incident readiness
Define acceptance, repository access, security updates, third-party code, data return and transition on termination. Preserve repository history, commits, package inventory and released builds when a dispute appears.
Relevant legislation and official sources
General legal information. Applicable law, jurisdiction, deadlines and remedies depend on the facts and current official texts; no outcome is guaranteed.
Content is for general information and is not personal legal advice. Contact alone does not establish a lawyer-client relationship.
Related practice areasIntellectual Property