Thread: Warning on Retention of Title and IP etc

Just an important notice about a complete first for me.

Many companies have Retention of Title. It protects them when people dont pay. Which happens. Basically it means that whatever you bought is theirs until you pay for it. Its actually pretty basic a concept...Think about - a car isn't yours until you pay for it (well under 50% anyay) and so on.

You can also (should) have a retention of title on all goods. That way if the client orders ten things and you deliver, then they have to pay for all ten, there is not swapping and choosing. It's a legal concept. It's a great idea. It stops people from ordering projects and bailiing on one while benefiting from the other. IF you can't pay for it, dont order it.

Our RoT covers "Goods and/or Services". They basically went and got a sworn affidavit saying the product/service supplied was Intellectual Property.

Having spent a long time in IT, I'm no expert but I did have 3 patent applications before I left thehuge blue-chip I worked in and I've certainly gotten my head around this more than our solicitor or theirs but :

Intellectual Property doesn't just mean things of an intellectual nature. A website isn't necessarily just intellectual property. It is also an implementation of it. To have Intellectual Property you have to have some kind of claim and therefore some set of rights to connect you to something specific. Like a Title Deed connects you to a piece of property. A copyright protects your music, design, written piece. Patents protect other things, trademarks protect trade marks etc.

A website may be electronic but it's not necessarily or automatically intellectual property on it's own. Its also an implementation of someone else IP. Yes there is a design and that automatically belongs to the designer but can be sold or transferred. But its still a service.

Anyway, a Limerick judge agreed with what we believe was a largely fabricated sworn affidavit and then ruled that the website was "IP" and did not constitute a service. Therefore the RoT failed.

By the way - the company (web developer) was not called to court nor given any notification. The ruling was made without calling the defendant to give defence as often is the case.

The ruling was an injunction for relief.

I can't believe it. my faith in the Irish Judiciary in this area was never strong but this takes the cake.

Please update your ToS/ToT!!!!

Don't worry link8r I will, but I do have a very beefy friend who speaks a dark tone of Irish and has can do a point perfect Northern accent...

... while handing in overdue invoices of course.

When you see everything else our legal system has fúcked up, thats just tipping the iceberg.

We have a laws were made to stem post civil war violence, that was nearly 90 years ago, and the law never really changed since then... we have laws that were made to fit a constitution that wasn't even perfect before it started.... and we have a constitution that allows for free speech, and yet the Media medium (web/forum owner) is the one that takes liability if a user screws up.

We have excelled as a nation in technology, or so we are told, yet our laws piss on all technology that exists, and we have a law reform body that does sweet f.all with their time.

When you see everything else our legal system has fúcked up, thats just tipping the iceberg.

We have a laws were made to stem post civil war violence, that was nearly 90 years ago, and the law never really changed since then... we have laws that were made to fit a constitution that wasn't even perfect before it started.... and we have a constitution that allows for free speech, and yet the Media medium (web/forum owner) is the one that takes liability if a user screws up.

We have excelled as a nation in technology, or so we are told, yet our laws piss on all technology that exists, and we have a law reform body that does sweet f.all with their time.

Here here!

Totally agree. To be honest the country is run on fumes, a good proportion of the electorate vote for people who defended institutional abuse and in general you can't say bah without someone turning around and either castigating you or stabbing you, depending what area you are in.

On the plus side, at least keeping any mention to computer studies out of secondary schools means we'll never have many redundant IT professionals.

The government is bound by lies of their predecessors. Damage limitation INC.