Your company has signed a nondisclosure agreement with a foreign-based entity. You and the foreign-based company intend to exchange critical confidential information and, ultimately, form a joint venture to profit from the collaboration, the contributed intellectual property (IP) and related investments.
Have you taken all the correct steps in each of the written agreements to protect your company’s disclosures and to prevent a dispute from arising? Does your nondisclosure agreement facilitate the exchange of information and the formation of the joint venture? Should a dispute arise, will the nondisclosure agreement protect your company, its disclosed confidential information and related IP? Will your agreements provide the necessary protections under both U.S. and foreign laws? READ MORE
These are specialized situations because the parties typically share information in the formative stage of the process, and then continue to share over several years of the venture. One party may be disclosing more of its secret sauce, while the other may have ongoing, internal projects that are similar to those disclosed. We call these hybrid agreements because the parties interact with each other, almost as if the joint venture were formed, i.e., the “hybrid” nature of the commercial relationship.
Here are some of things to consider for nondisclosure agreements, “hybrid joint venture” agreements and the related international IP dispute resolution issues that may arise:
We maintain a Northwest culture of service and responsiveness, with a global reach in this unique area. We are especially familiar with EU dispute resolution as it impacts U.S. companies and their technologies. Our experience in managing and resolving these types of IP and business disputes allows us to provide “big firm” advice at more efficient billing rates when compared with international and multi-national law firms.
Before proceeding, please note: If you are not a current client of Lane Powell PC, please do not include any information in this email that you or someone else considers to be confidential or secret in nature. Prior to the establishment of a lawyer-client relationship, unsolicited emails from non-clients containing confidential or secret information cannot be protected from disclosure.