Article

What You Need in Your Contractor Agreements

Cooley LLP · Cooley GO Free Intermediate

Cooley is the law firm behind a huge share of venture-backed startups, and this short piece tells you exactly why your company owns nothing a contractor builds unless the agreement assigns the IP to you. It walks through the specific clauses a contractor agreement needs so the code, designs, and everything else become yours. You get a lawyer's checklist without paying for the meeting.

• Without a signed IP assignment, a contractor can resell your code to a competitor.
• Payment alone does not transfer ownership of what a contractor creates.
• The agreement should be signed before work starts, not patched in later.