>I actually registered it, then negotiated with the company to form a partnership. One clause in the contract said if the company went south, I retained the rights to the code. Funny thing is, it was pretty straight forward code. The guys running the operation didn't impress me much as far as business savvy. The took me up to Nashville aboard the corporate jet, and enroute the CEO asked me, "what does this program do again?" He had lots of money, but wasn't on top of his business.
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sounds like you were the better business man - and that they were extremely poor business people.

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I've always been lucky, but I'm told it was fortuitous that I had filed for the copyright. That backed them off. In retrospect, I'd probably file for both copyright and patent.
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Was it patentable? As for the copyright, had I been their attorney, they would not have signed the contract - after the fact. Even if you had a copyright, I would have made sure that the consideration of the contract included title to the application and code. Had you not filed the copyright, you would not have been able to enforce it. FWIW, I think they had poor lawyering - assuming they had any counsel at all.

>My attorney said I would have had an excellent case based on the current caselaw. From my research and what my attorneys did, it seems that unless you specifically give up the software, it's probably yours. In some cases, the developer retained the rights to the code, even after they contracted to sell it. Law is a deep and mucky pit. What is true today, might not be true tomorrow, or at 5:30 this afternoon. As you are well aware, that's why most cases are settled, not tried.
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What work for hire case law? The law you assert is present - that if you don't specifically give up the code - it's yours smacks in the face of work for hire section of the USCA. The first question to address is if what you are doing is work for hire. Clearly in your case, it sounds as though you were able to structure it as not being work for hire. Therefore, the whole work for hire issue in your case may be irrelevant. In your case, it sounds like a contract issue - and not so much a work for hire issue.

It sounds pretty slick. Tell me, did you begin to write the software for them, see the potential, and then get a copyright? Or, did they know up front - before any work started, that you would retain the copyright and license the work to them? The facts seem a little fuzzy here...


< JVP >