Re: copyright notice on contract

On Wed, 25 Aug 1999, Robert Cumbow <rcumbow[_at_]grahamdunn.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Aug 24, 1999, Dana Bostrom <bostrom[_at_]u.washington.edu> wrote:
> >
> > I received a contract to review that had a copyright notice. None
> > of my colleagues had ever seen this before. Any ideas on why it
> > would be included?
>
> Companies that use a lot of contracts, and have over time developed
> boilerplate contracts that they rely on, are increasingly coming to
> regard those "form" agreements as proprietary to them and protectable
> as original works. To the best of my knowledge, their protectability
> has not yet been tested in a court of law. Some years ago certain
> insurance companies began putting copyright notices on their policies,
> as well; and their protectability HAS been affirmed in court.

The legal profession will fall to bits if such rules do apply. There was a canadian case.

I had one where a cheapskate client copied a competitor's contract. A major London IP firm got 'on his case' because the client had paid them tens of thousands of pounds for the contract. I discussed with them whether any part had also been 'sold' to another client, or had previously been sold to other clients, and whether they had any idea as to the provenance of the majority of the terms.

My client offered to undertake to used another contract (? get me to copy it ? :-) ), and that was that.

-- 
David Swarbrick 01484 722531 david@swarb.freeuk.com http://www.swarb.co.uk/
IP / IT Law and Contracts. Home of the law-index of 9800+ uk case summaries.
   The Law Society regulates us in the conduct of investment business.
     <david[_at_]swarb.demon.co.uk>