John,

Yes, there could be. When Ken called me about this Thursday night, the first thing I told him was to consult an attorney.

I was bit on something similar once. My contracts are now unambiguous and state upfront what I will own and what the customer will own and how the customer can use my library code in the future.

As for having to sign over the rights at the end of contract, I'll follow the advice I got from a practicing intellectual property attorney over that of a law student.


>Craig,
>
>There is more to it than that. Through contract, you can grant a license. It could be construed that by way of contract, he granted a non-exclusive license to use his class libraries.
>
>The real intellectual property value is often found in just being able to use something. This gets the possessory nature of what proprty is all about and goes back to that old saying that possession is 9/10 of the law. To some degree, that is true. But when push comes to shove, mere possession is not that dispositive of the issue.
>
>Your a good guy - so don't take this the wrong way - stick to writing software... :)
>
>