During a recent meeting with one of my friend, among other things, we ended up discussing the intellectual property rights issues as applied to the software industry. Both of us agreed that most of the customers in our careers have shot themselves in the foot by retaining the IP with them and not agreeing for a non-exclusive, royalty-free contracts.

I recalled several situations during the proposal stage with both large and mid-size customers, where the senior leadership of the customer wanted control over the IP. Customer always thought what they were building was unique and when they were paying us to build it for them why should they allow us to retain the IP. Some of customer were able to understand why allowing the vendor to retain the IP will create a win-win situation for both the parties.