sell a project

[mulder71]

greetings to all, I hope to post in the correct section, here is my question: a contractor asked me to design a special handling machine printed, offered, ordered and made the project. at some point the client tells me: Look, I don't build it anymore, we deal with the cost of the project and that's how it ends. my question: Can I sell the project to a third subject while not having had the opportunity to build the machine? and I'm not in the condition of building it, so someone could say I buy a project of something that I don't know if it works.
thanks to all for clarification and/or advice.

 

[cacciatorino]

greetings to all, I hope to post in the correct section, here is my question: a contractor asked me to design a special handling machine printed, offered, ordered and made the project. at some point the client tells me: Look, I don't build it anymore, we deal with the cost of the project and that's how it ends. my question: Can I sell the project to a third subject while not having had the opportunity to build the machine? and I'm not in the condition of building it, so someone could say I buy a project of something that I don't know if it works.
thanks to all for clarification and/or advice.

but would you like to sell the same project to two different companies, one of which is your client and one that will presumably be their competitor?

Anyway, I don't think it's because the intellectual property is your client's, and then it's a very unfair professional practice, and if you know (and you come to know so much about the world is small) you'd dig the land under your own feet.

 

[Vittorio]

If the idea is of the designer and no confidentiality agreement has been signed, I don't think there is a sales veto of your idea.

 

[mulder71]

thanks to all for the contributions, in fact the project is my idea and there is no contract of confidentiality, but as it says hunter could be a poor practice, and in the future I could pass as unreliable person.

 

[ceschi1959]

if, as I understand, the project you were paid becomes the property of the first client, who has all the right to have all the documentation and native files of the project that should be deleted from all your support.

 

[mulder71]

if, as I understand, the project you were paid becomes the property of the first client, who has all the right to have all the documentation and native files of the project that should be deleted from all your support.

Thanks to the clarification, I was paid even if we agreed with something less, and of course I delivered everything about the project.

 

[Vittorio]

if the project has revolutionary ideas.. is owned by the designer although it was paid.
I think I understand this.
I link you to get your opinion of my interpretation
link

 

[ceschi1959]

if the project has revolutionary ideas.. is owned by the designer although it was paid.
I think I understand this.
I link you to get your opinion of my interpretation
link

I have not understood where these revolutionary ideas can be if even the author says

and I am not in the condition of building it, so someone could say I buy a project of a something I don't know if it works.thanks to all for clarification and/or advice.

then it is certainly not the word of the designer that guarantees the 'revolutionary' of the work.

 

[Vittorio]

"The idea" is a complicated world to interpret.
Of course you can not sell, to others, the same equal project.
but a simple variant excludes the identity of the project maintaining the original idea.
then there is the ethical speech... and in this case there is no room for interpretations.

 

[DrBarde]

I probably won't explain well, but I try.
ethically, as I see it, the project itself, if it is not correct to review it.
However, if in doing so you have done some concepts, even better if reduced to the minimum terms, reuse them is a value.
Specifically (as far as I think it is not as real as a situation), if in the handling project you have created a conceptually new and unique dynamism, and you can reduce it to a scheme of forces and logic, you could reproduce it, without copying it, but improving it after a further study.

 

[scalva]

If you have no written constraints with the former client, which apparently is not even + interested, and the project you have in your hand, I think you can do what you want.

 

[giotama]

You may try to agree with the client to propose the project together with other potential customers, perhaps saving a royalties or commission and for him the management of production and marketing. he could return to this cost he claimed and you could round up again by putting back on a job already done.
your client could also benefit from the future by being able to count on the experience made during the production and commissioning of the first prototype and being able to build a tomorrow the same tool with subsequent improvements and functional and productive evolutions.

 

[wert]

apart from the ethical discourse, which I think is predominant, I say it takes a good courage to try to sell an idea that might not work properly. who sells patents, usually spends money to make a working prototype. and in any case, a compensation for his work our friend had it. an employee who develops a project for the company that pays it, can certainly not sell the idea to another just because then the company decided not to realize/produce that product/device.

 

[scalva]

Where do you say you did it as an employee?

 

[wert]

Where do you say you did it as an employee?

no, it's not an employee but it was a paid job. I don't think anyone who paid him agrees if he sells the project to others. I want to believe that in the invoice you have put the causal to the payment... At least I would have asked.

 

[scalva]

mulder71 scribes:
at some point the client tells me: Look, I don't build it anymore, we deal with the cost of the project and that's how it ends. if one commissiones me a job (sometimes you trust the word), I spend time and at some point this changes my idea and says hello it was nice but I changed my mind and offers me a tip, I feel authorized to use my project, maybe making changes

I repeat, if there is a deal or a written contract everything changes.

then there is the ethical discourse, but that is just another speech, you could write a book, taking into account the category of free professionals, in the mechanical sector, is one of the + "ethical" that exists.

 

[mulder71]

thanks to all for clarifications and advice, as said before the project has been paid to me in compensation for the time spent, as the client for his reasons decided not to realize it anymore.
but apart from the ethical and correctness speech, which I express care a lot, with this project in hand that unfortunately I have not seen realized physically, and therefore see it working, to another subject that could be interested I could propose to it? That's my dilemma, all to avoid ethical-professional speeches, which would be harmful to me personally. appealing to your experience, could a third party be interested in an idea that has not yet been realized?

 

[TETRASTORE]

Could a third party be interested in an idea that has not yet been realized?

Yes, if you will be able to convince him that the solution you have proposed will bring him advantages from the productive, qualitative and economic point of view.

 

[Fulvio Romano]

if, as I understand, the project you were paid becomes the property of the first client, who has all the right to have all the documentation and native files of the project that should be deleted from all your support.

in reality the situation is extremely complex. the suggestion is always to make up of contracts that clarify the properties in play.
If I pay a project, then this is mine only if I wrote it in a contract, otherwise not. if, however, those who designed it if it proves it behaves irrepressible from the legal point of view, but very bad from the deontological point of view, which digs the earth under his feet as someone wrote above.

in general contracts are defined:1. nre (non-recurring costs, i.e. design)
Whose intellectual property is it?
- Are the drawings delivered together? details? 3D? gerber files? the source of the code?
- of who is the project (maybe the project is mine, but the property is yours, so I can remove the production by paying royalties)
- who can/can not patent if he was interested
2. production equipment- Who produces them?
- Who pays them?
- who am I (if I take off your production, can I get the molds for example? Are they mine? Can I get them to another printer? do you give me the process parameters or do I need to remake the prototypes?
- Who pays for maintenance?
3. cost of prototypes- especially with electronics, prototypes can also cost an order of magnitude more than production. Who pays them?
- Who are they?
- Which of those are golden samples? Who are they? Yes, but whose property is it? who pays taxes at the end of the year on their stock value?
4. production costs- is there exclusive? How long?
- minimum and maximum lot (attention that you usually think only at the minimum and if the market is ok the supplier asks money to increase the production capacity)?
- who holds the marking charges (ce, atex, ped, etc.)
- How is the guarantee managed?
- how are non-compliance handled? Who pays the unconformed? who pays the non-compliant management?
- how are complaints handled by the final customer? how do different actors configure?

There is a special professional figure, the industrial surveyor, whose humbly I try to be a part of. to summarize, it is people who ask questions to the two parties in order to help them clarify and put in writing all doubts before leaving.