A collegiate video coordinator who built a proprietary film-breakdown tool on his own time, an employment agreement with a work-made-for-hire provision, a school administration wanting the tool post-departure, and no clear line between what the school paid him for and what he built himself. We drew the line.
The tool used no school-owned assets and no student-athlete personal data. His employment agreement had a work-made-for-hire provision that, on a literal reading, would sweep the tool into the school's ownership.
The athletic department wanted to keep the tool after his departure. The receiving program was interested in licensing the tool at his new posting.
We ran a careful line between what the school had paid him to do and what he had built on his own time with his own equipment. We pulled his employment agreement, his job description, the department's technology-use policy, and the actual development history of the tool (commit logs, device records, off-hours development), and built a written record supporting his ownership of the tool separate from any work-for-hire obligation.
We negotiated a written acknowledgment from the athletic department that the tool was his personal property, in exchange for a paid-up license granting the school a defined ongoing right to use the tool at the same discount level his employment had implicitly provided.
We drafted the licensing template so the same terms could apply to the receiving program and any future customer. We coordinated a clean exit and the tool went with him.
"He built it on his own time. Brandon made sure the paper said so."
— Video Coordinator
A standard work-made-for-hire provision is written to capture everything an employee produces during their tenure, without distinguishing between what the employer actually directed and paid for versus what an employee builds independently on personal time. That broad default works fine until someone builds something valuable enough that the difference matters.
A development record, commit logs, device history, off-hours timestamps, is what turns an argument about intent into a documented fact pattern. Building that record before the dispute escalates is what let this resolve as a negotiated license instead of a fight over ownership.
We handle IP ownership disputes for staff and coaches whose personal projects intersect with employer-owned technology, and we build the record that makes the ownership line defensible.
Most engagements are flat fee, quoted before the work begins — and most matters resolve without litigation. Start with a free consultation.