Work vs. design vs. intellectual property in engineering

Another discussion I had on LinkedIn recently showed that intellectual property law is very difficult to assimilate, mainly because – due to its ‘immateriality’ – it escapes the intuitive and material manners of human perception of the world. This is overlaid by the coder’s conviction that, in principle, they are autonomous creators, and unfortunately, many lawyers also think so. The thing is that the coder is always the creator, but not always the designer. When the coder is not a designer, their works (source code) are dependent works on primary works, which are technical designs expressed, for example with the help of UML, mathematical formulae, algorithms. Then we expect coders, as developers, to do their craft brilliantly.Given that I often use purposeful and systemic interpretation of contracts and law in the expert reports I write, I have decided to describe here an ontological analysis of this area of engineering. The aim is to determine the meaning and range of definitions of terms commonly used in the field of intellectual property. I also hope to help you with this to make better software supply contracts.

Source: Creation vs. design vs. intellectual property in engineering – Jarosław Żeliński IT-Consulting.