Software is protected mainly by copyright, which you own only if everyone who wrote it assigned it to your company in writing. Your brand is protected by a trademark, which is cheap and worth registering early. Patents rarely apply to apps and are slow and expensive. Trade secrets protect what you keep confidential. The practical work is five documents: IP assignments from every contributor, a trademark registration, NDAs where useful, terms of service, and a privacy policy.
Prices are in US dollars. Euro and pound figures in parentheses are approximate, rounded conversions. Quotes are issued in the currency of your contract.
Intellectual property sounds like a subject for later, once there is something worth protecting. In practice the cheapest and most important steps happen at the beginning, and several cannot be fixed afterwards without cost and awkwardness. This guide covers the four kinds of protection, what each one does for an app business, and the documents that matter.
What are the four kinds of protection?
| Protection | What it covers | How you get it | Typical cost | Relevance to an app |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Copyright | The code, the designs, the written content | Automatic on creation, but owned by the author unless assigned | Free, plus legal cost of assignment clauses | Essential. This is what you own. |
| Trademark | Your name, logo and brand elements | Registration in each country or region | $250 to $2,000 (€220 to €1,500, £185 to £1,500) per region with a professional | High. Cheap protection for the asset customers recognise. |
| Patent | A novel technical invention | Application, examination, grant, per country | $10,000 to $50,000 (€8,500 to €44,000, £7,500 to £37,000) and years | Low for most apps. Business methods and ordinary software rarely qualify. |
| Trade secret | Anything valuable you keep confidential | By keeping it secret, with contracts and access controls | Free, plus discipline | Moderate. Algorithms, data, pricing models, supplier terms. |
Copyright: the one that matters most
Every line of code, every screen design and every paragraph of copy is a copyrighted work owned by its author the moment it is created. The author is the person who wrote it, or their employer if they wrote it as an employee. It is not you, the person who paid for it, unless a contract says so.
This means your company needs a written intellectual property assignment from:
- Every agency and freelancer who has worked on the product.
- Every employee, in their employment contract, since default rules vary by country.
- Every cofounder, for work done before the company existed.
- Every advisor or friend who contributed a design, a logo, a piece of code.
Investors and acquirers will ask for these. Missing ones are found in due diligence and fixed under time pressure, at which point the person being asked to sign has leverage. Get them early. Our post on who owns the code covers the agency contract in detail.
Trademarks: cheap and often neglected
Your app's name is how customers find you and recommend you. A trademark registration gives you the right to stop others using a confusingly similar name for similar services, and it is the asset a competitor or a domain squatter will exploit if you do not have it.
- Search before you commit to a name. Trademark databases, app stores, domain names and social handles. Discovering a conflict after launch means rebranding.
- Register in your main markets. Typically your home country plus the regions where you sell. Registration is per jurisdiction, with some regional systems covering many countries.
- Register the word mark first. The name in plain text is broader protection than a specific logo. Add the logo if budget allows.
- Secure the app store names and domains at the same time. App store names are first come, first served.
Patents: usually not the answer
Founders often ask about patenting their app idea. In most jurisdictions, an idea for an app, a business method or ordinary software is not patentable. A genuinely novel technical method, such as a new compression algorithm or a new way of processing sensor data, may be. Patents are slow, expensive, public and country-specific, and they are of limited value to a startup that cannot afford to enforce them. Unless a patent lawyer tells you that you have something unusual, spend the money on validation and trademarks.
Trade secrets: protection by discipline
Anything valuable that you keep confidential can be protected as a trade secret: a matching algorithm, a pricing model, supplier terms, a customer list, the data you have accumulated. The protection lasts as long as the secrecy does. It depends on contracts with everyone who has access, confidentiality clauses in employment and vendor agreements, and practical access controls. The moment it is disclosed without protection, it is gone.
Open source: what you must know
Your product will include open-source software, which is normal and good. Most open-source licences allow commercial use freely. A small number, often called copyleft licences, require that software built with them is also released as open source under certain conditions. Your development team should be able to list every open-source component and its licence, and confirm that none of them impose obligations you did not intend. Ask for this list at handover.
The five documents that secure your IP
- IP assignment agreements with every contributor, past and present, including cofounders and the development partner.
- Trademark registration for the name, in your main markets.
- Non-disclosure agreements with vendors and partners where confidential information is genuinely shared. Not with investors, who will not sign them.
- Terms of service for your users, covering ownership of your product, what users may do, and ownership of content they contribute.
- A privacy policy that accurately describes what data you collect and how it is used, which is required by law in most markets and by both app stores.
Where 7L fits
We assign all intellectual property in what we build to you, name any pre-existing components we use and license them to you permanently, list every open-source dependency at handover, and set up every account in your company's name. For the trademark and legal work we are glad to introduce founders to specialists in each of our markets. Ask us how ownership works on a 7L project.
This post is general information, not legal advice. Intellectual property law differs by country. Consult a qualified lawyer in your jurisdiction before making decisions.
Frequently asked questions
Can I copyright my app idea?
No. Copyright protects the expression, meaning the code, designs and text, not the idea. Two companies can build competing apps for the same idea without infringing each other, as long as neither copies the other's actual work.
Do I need an NDA before talking to developers?
It is reasonable to ask a development company for a simple mutual NDA, and professional ones will sign. Do not let it delay the conversation. Investors will not sign NDAs and you should not ask.
What if my cofounder wrote code before we incorporated?
They own it personally until they assign it to the company. Get a written assignment as part of the founder agreements. It is routine and it avoids a difficult conversation later, especially if a cofounder leaves.
Is it worth registering a trademark in every country?
No. Register where you operate and where you plan to expand soon. Regional systems cover multiple countries in one application. Extend the registration as you grow.
Who owns content that users upload to my app?
The user, usually, unless your terms of service say otherwise. Most apps take a licence from the user to display and process their content, rather than ownership. Your terms of service need to say which.