Intellectual Property Agreement Template

We’ve designed a simple intellectual property agreement (PDF and Word) to protect the originality of your organization’s inventions.

Free Intellectual Property Agreement Sample

We’ve designed a simple intellectual property agreement (PDF and Word) to protect the originality of your organization’s inventions.

What’s in this template?

Click below to grab a copy of our intellectual property agreement template

What is an intellectual property contract?

Intellectual property, or IP for short, refers to a group of intangible and tangible assets, including patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade practices, all aimed to protect the originality of ideas.

In some cases, an organization’s core function is to grow its intellectual property as a business advantage. For instance, Disney, a well-renown entertainment company, creates and acquires IP in the form of movies, theme parks, and branding. This makes Disney impossibly unique and hard to replicate.

Intellectual property is a complex subject, so if you’re interested in getting more of an overview, check out the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYiXTKbdNr4

Organizations like to recruit talented employees to create more inventions to add to their IP.

An intellectual property agreement is a formal contract between employees and employers that outline the terms and conditions for how an organization’s intellectual property is protected when employees create inventions as a function of their job.

DISCLAIMER: We are not lawyers or a law firm and we do not provide legal, business or tax advice. We recommend you consult a lawyer or other appropriate professional before using any templates or agreements from this website.

Download our Intellectual Property (IP) Agreement

How you manage your intellectual property can make or break your organization. Maintaining proprietary ideas provides for a massive competitive edge, and you need the best team you can get to help execute on your ideas.

That’s why we’ve done the hard work to develop a simple intellectual property agreement that you can repeatedly use across your business saving you time, money, and hassle.

Click below to access our template today

Why is an intellectual property agreement important?

Inventors exist across various industries with a broad range of skills. We’re talking about filmmakers, designers, marketers, entrepreneurs, copywriters, to name a few.

When you source the best talent to create for your organization, there’s always the risk that some employees will use their skills to compete with your company.

And from the employees’ perspective, you have lots of creative ideas that you want to get out into the world, and sometimes it can feel restrictive to give up all of your work to your employer.

In such murky territory, you must use an intellectual property contract to set appropriate expectations, so all parties are on the same page.

The other risk if you don’t have an IP agreement is that disputes arise over the ownership of assets, which can escalate to nasty lawsuits.

An IP agreement can help prevent such cases—saving time, money, and damaged reputations.

Best practices to get the most out your intellectual property protection agreement

A good IP agreement template is a fantastic start to protect your company’s inventions; however, we’ve found three best practices to effectively use your contract.

1. Help protect your employee's prior inventions

You hired your talented workforce likely because they are highly creative and have an extensive portfolio showcasing their past projects. Sometimes you may successfully recruit employees from a competing business, and their previous work is closely related to your organization.

To help retain and empower your team, you must offer them protection for their past inventions.

This means working closely with your employees to understand previous inventions they’ve assisted on and allow them to list their projects on your contract as a form of protection.

2. Get the timing right when presenting your IP agreement

You’ll likely be recruiting employees into creative roles, either externally or internally. The pathway will determine when you present your intellectual property contract. For example, if you hire an external candidate, you’ll offer your agreement as part of the external onboarding process.

However, if you’re recruiting a candidate from an unrelated department into a role that could influence your IP, then you’ll need to introduce your agreement when you start your internal onboarding program.

Alternatively, you may decide that an intellectual property agreement is required for all employees across your organization. In this case, you could package your IP contract with your standard employment agreements.

3. Get employees to return materials and data

As an added layer of protection, it’s good practice for team members to return all materials related to IP upon the termination of your contract. This could mean any notes, drawings, designs, audio recordings, or work towards IP related projects.

To help make this process easier, it’s always a good idea to get employees to use business tools and programs to develop their concepts, so you have some control over the protection of work. This can’t always be helped as some roles are remote, but even then, having an agreement in place will mitigate the risk.

Download our Intellectual Property Agreement

That’s why we’ve done the hard work to develop a simple intellectual property agreement that you can repeatedly use across your business saving you time, money, and hassle.

Click below to access our template today

Frequently Asked Questions

FAQs about Intellectual Property Contracts

How do you transfer intellectual property?

The transfer of intellectual property is a highly complex topic that should be guided by independent IP advisors. However, on the surface, to transfer IP successfully, you, the assigner, need to prove ownership and then draw up a formal agreement on the terms of the transfer.
The intellectual property transfer agreement needs to highlight the scope of activities the assignee can perform in precise details of what encapsulates the IP in the transaction.
We recommend you consult with your local intellectual property authorities to confirm all the information you need to transfer IP.

Who owns the intellectual property?

Generally speaking, employers own the intellectual property of any related creations by employees in the duration of their employment. Specifically, any inventions made on company time or related to the function of the organization will be owned by the employer.
The employee would own any inventions made by the employee outside of work hours and are not related to the core function of the employer.

Can I edit your intellectual property agreement template?

We’ve made our intellectual property contract in Word so you can make modifications to the document as needed.
If you intend to make significant changes to the template, we suggest you consult with an attorney or an Intellectual Property consultant to ensure you remain protected.

document preview

Intellectual Property Agreement

Parties

– This Intellectual Property Agreement (hereinafter referred to as the “Agreement”) is entered into on ______________ (the “Effective Date”), by and between __________________________, with an address of ______________ (hereinafter referred to as the “Employee”) and ______________ with an address of ______________ (hereinafter referred to as the “Employer”) (collectively referred to as the “Parties”).

Intellectual Property

– The Parties hereby agree that the Employee assigns the Employer all the present and future rights and title, as well as the interest to all intellectual property (hereinafter referred to as “Intellectual Property”) that is created and/or discovered during the term of their employment.

– Intellectual Property includes, but is not limited to, trademarks, trade names, service marks, service mark registrations, service names, patents, patent rights, copyrights, inventions, licenses, approvals, governmental authorizations, trade secrets, algorithms, codes, inventions, processes, software, formulas, ideas, concepts and developments.

Prior Inventions

– The Parties hereby agree that any Intellectual Property that has already been in existence prior to the employment of the Employee will remain the exclusive property of the Employee in case the Employee has a right, title, or interest in it.

– The prior inventions of the Employee are enlisted below:

_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________

Patent And Copyright Registrations

– Hereby, the Employee agrees that he/she will cooperate with the Employer in this Agreement as reasonably as possible for the sake of obtaining the copyrights and patents that are needed for the security of the Employer’s ownership rights in the Intellectual Property. This cooperation will last during the course of the employment as well as after its termination.

Term

– This Agreement will begin on ______________________ and will remain in effect until ______________________.

– After the termination of this Agreement, the Employer will acquire exclusive ownership rights to all the Employee’s post-employment intellectual property that arises from or relates to his/her work for the Employer in this Agreement.

Return Of Data And Documents

– The Parties agree that after the termination of this Agreement the Employee will return all the tangible embodiments of the Intellectual Property immediately as per the orders of the Employer. Such include, but are not limited to drawings, documents, data and notes that are or have been developed during the course of the employment.

– The Employee hereby agrees not to make any copies of the tangible embodiments or try to recreate them.

Assignment

– The Parties agree not to assign the responsibilities in this Agreement to any third party.

Governing Law

– This Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of ______________.

Severability

– In an event where any provision of this Agreement is found to be void and unenforceable by a court of competent jurisdiction, then the remaining provisions will remain to be enforced in accordance with the Parties’ intention.

Entire Agreement

– This Agreement contains the entire agreement and understanding among the Parties hereto with respect to the subject matter hereof, and supersedes all prior agreements, understandings, inducements and conditions, express or implied, oral or written, of any nature whatsoever with respect to the subject matter hereof. The express terms hereof control and supersede any course of performance and/or usage of the trade inconsistent with any of the terms hereof.

Successors And Assigns

– The Parties agree that this Agreement will bind upon the Employee’s heirs, successors and assigns for the sake of the benefit of the Employer and the Employer’s heirs, successors and assigns.

Amendments

– The Parties agree that any amendments made to this Agreement must be in writing where they must be signed by both Parties to this Agreement.

– As such, any amendments made by the Parties will be applied to this Agreement.

Signature And Date

– The Parties hereby agree to the terms and conditions set forth in this Agreement and such is demonstrated throughout by their signatures below:

Employee

Name: ______________________

Signature: ___________________

Date: _______________________

Employer

Name: ______________________

Signature: ___________________

Date: _______________________

Related Proposals and Templates

Download our Intellectual Property Agreement Sample

That’s why we’ve done the hard work to develop a simple intellectual property agreement that you can repeatedly use across your business saving you time, money, and hassle.

Click below to access our template today