Intellectual Property Assignment

Intellectual Property (“IP”) is a valuable commercial commodity. IP covers a broad range of assets such as company logos, document contents or the code behind a company’s product.

It is critical that any IP established by a company belongs to them and not to a third party. An IP Assignment document explicitly states IP ownership, eliminating uncertainty of who owns what. This document identifies the original creator of the IP as the “Assignor”. The company to which the IP should belong will be termed the “Assignee”.

We have provided two example IP Assignment documents. Both drafts have been drawn up on the assumption that the IP has been created under a consultancy agreement and using identical provisions. The main difference is whether the Assignor is a company or an individual.

Clause 2 of the agreements state that the Assignor is assigning all IP rights to the Assignee. This covers IP made both before and after the date of the agreement so any existing work will be caught by the agreement. Clause 4 includes warranties that the Assignor gives to the Assignee. Warranties are statements of facts. If any of these are untrue, the Assignor may face liability for breach of this clause.

These agreements are deeds and must be witnessed. Witnesses must be 18+ years of age, unrelated to the person signing (by blood or association), be of sound mind and have no connection to the agreement.

Download the Intellectual Property Assignment (with company)

Download the Intellectual Property Assignment (with individual)