The Growing Significance Of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) For Engineering Solutions

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Engineering services providers and vendors have changed the way various industry sectors operate. With the ease of multidisciplinary design and detailed engineering services available from quality organizations such as Rishabh Engineering, it is a more efficient way of delivering value by leveraging expertise and talent across the world. Owner-operators and engineering, petroleum and construction companies(EPCs) in many sectors like refineries, petrochemicals, power, cryogenics, pharmaceuticals etc. are reaping the benefits of high value engineering support, be it on site or offsite.

Many EPCs and owner-operators share a wide array of proprietary knowledge when subcontracting their projects, disclosure, confidentiality and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) are of utmost importance. Many types of IP (Intellectual Property) assets are involved at different stages of sourcing services like Detailed Engineering, Intelligent 3D Modeling etc.

First and foremost, IP protection is quite critical for securing any company’s patented designs, processes and inventions that could spell disaster if leaked to the competition. The technical definition of IP defines it as such: Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the intellect for which a monopoly is assigned to designated owners by law. Intellectual property rights (IPRs) are the rights granted to the creators of IP, and include trademarks, copyright, patents, industrial design rights, and in some jurisdictions trade secrets.

Any infringement of IPR constitutes as breach of law and can wreck a company’s market advantage or reputation, also ending in expensive lawsuits.

Partner Selection And IPR:

While selecting your partner/vendor, you must look for companies that have a robust IPR policy to secure your process parameters. As a standard measure, partners/sub-contractors sign confidentiality documents, non-disclosure agreements and other legal documents as applicable for each project. Since service providers work with multiple companies some of whom are directly in competition, special care has to be taken to avoid conflict of interest. Once the project has been completed, you need to secure and protect the assets generated (such as intelligent 3D models, Detailed Engineering designs) so that your proprietary designs don’t get reused or seized by competition.

Owner operators, EPCs and Engineering Companies must undertake an intellectual property due diligence enquiry before finalizing a vendor. It is important for the customer to review the work to be sourced and examine all licensing agreements and legalities.

Best Practices:

Subcontractors and service providers need to train and induct key project personnel on various aspects of IPR. Project in-charge/IT must also decide permissions/access for all team members to information. Rishabh Engineering has strict parameters for providing read/write access to engineers/designers, restricting folder access for most users to read access. For projects that deal with higher levels of confidentiality and sensitive information, there is also provision for creation of ‘Dedicated/Restricted work zones’ allowing only authorized personnel to enter the zones.

IT plays an important role and it is required to follow Information Security Management System (ISMS) guidelines. ISMS policies and procedures help in managing a company’s sensitive data. Rishabh Engineering is an ISO 9001:2000 & ISO/IEC 270001:2005 (ISMS) certified company and follows ISMS best practices.

Computer servers must be protected against hacking and infiltration. All data transfer must take place over FTP servers between secured gateways. Additionally, to protect the information further data backup should be taken at periodic intervals to ensure backup and recovery in case of any kind of failure.

The vendor/customer partnership is extremely successful when well implemented by an integrated and watertight IP policy. By treading with caution, companies can thwart IP-related risks and enhance the value of their engineering design/project. However, the arrangements require thorough IP due diligence inquiries and IP audits, given the significant impact and synergy of the relationship.

If you are looking to team up with a reliable and trustworthy partner for engineering services, you can trust Rishabh Engineering’s robust and secure IPR process. To understand our policies and procedures, Contact Us Now or Call 1-877-RISHABH (1-877-747-4224).

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