Database Patent

  • Thread starter Thread starter Darren Evans
  • Start date Start date
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Darren Evans

I have written a database for some friends who have their
own business. They work along side another company doing
the same thing but in a different part of the country.
The company that they both work for wants my database to
be used in both companies. My friends already have it
(obviously!) but can I charge the other company a fee for
a copy even though the database is in Access 2003?
Anybody got any ideas? Can you Patent a product that is
produced on a one user license third party software
application?

Cheers
 
Patent, probably not, copyright, probably. If you are not an employee of the
company for which you developed the application, then in the absence of any
agreement to the contrary, you are probably the legal copyright owner. But I
agree that you would be well advised to talk to a qualified legal advisor,
especially if you think there is any possibility that the question may be
contested.
 
Hi Darren,

Patent - almost certainly not.

The natural form of legal protection for software is copyright, and in
general copyright in something belongs to the person who created it - or
if they were paid to write it, to the person who paid them. So if your
friends paid you to create the database for them they probably own the
copyright - not of Access, but of what you created for them. If you
wrote it for them out of the goodness of your heart probably you own the
copyright. Meanwhile, the data your friends have stored in the database
may belong to them, or someone else, or no one.

However (a) this is legal stuff and (b) I'm not a lawyer therefore (c)
this is not legal advice!
 
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