Who Owns Your Plans?

Published in Intellectual Property Protection, Real Estate, Services We Provide on February 17, 2011

Do you create your own house plans or blueprints?  Do you have someone (e.g. an architect) assist or create layouts and blueprints for you?   If you paid to have them drawn up, you may or may not be the owner of the plans or blueprints.  What do I mean?  You may have the right to use the plans, but copyright laws will control whether you have the right to sell the plans, stop someone else from using the plans, or alter the plans without the permission of the creator.

Copyright 101:  In the U.S., the owner of a copyright in a work is the author.  In most cases, this is an individual or a group of individuals working together to create the work.  When a group is involved, the ownership rights are shared among them and any one of the owners has the right to use the work, with some exceptions, of course.  If an artist or architect creates a work for you, your right to use the work will be based either on an assignment or an agreement.

  • An assignment can be used to transfer copyright ownership rights to you.  An assignment is merely an agreement where the creator of the work agrees to assign all of his or her rights in the work to you in return for a payment (or ongoing payments).
  • A work made for hire is owned by the hiring party, not the creator.  There are two distinct types of work that may be classified as “made for hire”: (1) a work created by an employee within the scope of employment or (2) a commissioned work created by an independent contractor (non-employee) that is the subject of a written work-for-hire agreement and that falls within a special group of categories. Drawings or architectural plans are not included in the work-for-hire categories. Therefore, assignment language must be used in a written agreement with an independent contractor.
  • A license is the right to use the artwork for a specific purpose. A license does not transfer copyright ownership and only gives you limited rights as defined by the licensor.

It is always best to have ownership rights spelled out in a written document.  Otherwise, you may be surprised to find out that you have only paid for a license to use the plans.  If the creator is the owner, he or she is free to sell them to your competitor.

* Jeffery Jacobson is an attorney with Parmenter O’Toole, PLC in Muskegon, Michigan. Parmenter O’Toole is a full-service business and real estate firm with extensive experience in the area of construction law. The comments in this article are not intended to be a substitute for legal guidance or advice for a specific situation.  You should obtain informed legal counsel to assist in your decisions relating to any issues which may be raised in this article.  For additional information regarding the above topic, or any other intellectual property issues you may have, Jeff can be reached at Jeffrey A. Jacobson or 231.722.5405.

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