Corporate lawyers..what to expect

[Brown and Boris]

About 18 months ago I went to a company of specialist lawyers for a quick heads up on a copyright issue before I pressed on with some web development work. They did a bit of research by looking at the proposed product ( we had a secure demo site up) and others on the market overseas, and I had about 90 minutes with them discussing ways of ensuring we didn't breach the IPO of a competitor whilist protecting our own IP.

Their verbal advice was there was not a sigificant risk of us breaching the competitors copyright as long as we did X, Y and Z, which we did.

Now the product is about to come to market and has had various changes along the way, making it less and less similar to the competitors product and I have returned to them asking for a formal written opinion so that I can show it to prospective licence holders. Now they have got decidedly more jittery about saying we are not infringing copyright. I have had a complete schedule of questions to detail the exact steps which took place in the development, about whether my web develpers and I visited the competitor site and what they did whle they were there, what materials I have downloaded from the competitor site (they have some public downloads)and what I did with them. It all seems quite indepth and a bit worrying that they have reservations.

Is this simply routine for legal opinion, or is it just the fact that I am committing them to paper with their opinion, or should I worry that they have grave concerns that this very expensive product may be in breach of the competitors IPR? They are obviously fairly tight lipped while their own research is going on.

Edited by Brown and Boris on Saturday 6th September 08:56

Edited by Brown and Boris on Saturday 6th September 08:57

[edb49]

If you are asking someone to put their name to something, it's inevitable they're going to be more cautious than if you were asking them for a "pub opinion". Copyright is quite specific as I understand it, are you more concerned about infringing patents etc?

[Brown and Boris]

edb49 said:

If you are asking someone to put their name to something, it's inevitable they're going to be more cautious than if you were asking them for a "pub opinion". Copyright is quite specific as I understand it, are you more concerned about infringing patents etc?

No copyright. They are concerned about the 'look and feel' and the fact the competitor has a very strong name in the market that our product name shouldn't not be seen as 'passing off'. Sadly there are only so many ways that what the competitors does can be laid out on screen (bit like MS saying you can't have a spreadsheet because it is in rows and columns like ours is). We mat have to change a few things to avoid them looking similar.

[TuscNick]

Brown and Boris said:

edb49 said:

If you are asking someone to put their name to something, it's inevitable they're going to be more cautious than if you were asking them for a "pub opinion". Copyright is quite specific as I understand it, are you more concerned about infringing patents etc?

No copyright. They are concerned about the 'look and feel' and the fact the competitor has a very strong name in the market that our product name shouldn't not be seen as 'passing off'. Sadly there are only so many ways that what the competitors does can be laid out on screen (bit like MS saying you can't have a spreadsheet because it is in rows and columns like ours is). We mat have to change a few things to avoid them looking similar.

There is quite a lot to think about on passing off, not as cut and dried as some aspects (in my opnion), there are the tactical issue to consider too, such as the other company may claim passing off, which could cost you in dealing with the claim and or distract you from your core objectives (irrespective of whether the passing off claim would succeed.

From the Lawyers angle, yes, I would thought it would be entirely normal to get ALL (or as much as possible ) info before giving and opinion (even then the opinion may be qualified)

Nick

[Brown and Boris]

TuscNick said:

Brown and Boris said:

edb49 said:

If you are asking someone to put their name to something, it's inevitable they're going to be more cautious than if you were asking them for a "pub opinion". Copyright is quite specific as I understand it, are you more concerned about infringing patents etc?

No copyright. They are concerned about the 'look and feel' and the fact the competitor has a very strong name in the market that our product name shouldn't not be seen as 'passing off'. Sadly there are only so many ways that what the competitors does can be laid out on screen (bit like MS saying you can't have a spreadsheet because it is in rows and columns like ours is). We mat have to change a few things to avoid them looking similar.

There is quite a lot to think about on passing off, not as cut and dried as some aspects (in my opnion), there are the tactical issue to consider too, such as the other company may claim passing off, which could cost you in dealing with the claim and or distract you from your core objectives (irrespective of whether the passing off claim would succeed.

From the Lawyers angle, yes, I would thought it would be entirely normal to get ALL (or as much as possible ) info before giving and opinion (even then the opinion may be qualified)

Nick

I guess he is being thorough, which is good I guess. I had just started to worry that his indepth questions were an indication that he had seen problems.

The 'competitor' is a not-for-profit organisation so they wouldn't have any losses as such but as you say the pain on defending such a claim would be the penalty, and the fact they could insist on us withdrawing the product.

You can but=y copyright insurance but I am told it isn't cheap and their pening gambit is a copy of legal opinion.

[edb49]

Is this something similar to justgiving?

[Brown and Boris]

edb49 said:

Is this something similar to justgiving?

No. It is a new staff development tool.

Lawyer wrote yesterday: looks like it is all OK. He has suggested we chnage the product name to be on the safeside but it looks like he was just covering the bases.