Since its inception, SorbaraLaw has assisted its corporate and business clients in protecting their intellectual property (IP) rights. We advise our clients on matters involving patents, trademarks, copyright design, trade secrets, confidentiality, non- disclosure and non-solicitation. We prosecute copyright and trademark applications on behalf of our clients. We also have a long-standing working relationship with a select group of competitively priced patent agents with expertise in all areas of engineering and design. From offices in Ottawa, our patent agents are close to the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) and have easy access to CIPO's paper records and on-site databases, much of which is unavailable online. Our agents are immediately responsive and our clients benefit from their expertise and years of experience. In representing the intellectual property concerns of our clients, we have negotiated and prepared:

• non-disclosure, non-competition and non-solicitation agreements;
• teaming agreements;
• research consortium agreements;
• employment agreements specifically designed to protect employers' intellectual property rights and those of purchasers and co-venturers; and
• agreements concerning the ownership of intellectual property, including background IP, foreground IP, publication rights, and the commercialization of intellectual property.

Technology is now an integral part of the business operations of our corporate clients and we have responded to their ever-increasing needs in this area of the law. We have assisted inventors and start-up Internet-based businesses, and we routinely address the technology issues that our well-established corporate clients confront on a daily basis.

Some of the services recently provided by SorbaraLaw lawyers in relation to technology and intellectual property issues include:

• software development, sale, licensing and distribution agreements
• source code escrow agreements
• non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements
• website development, maintenance and upgrade agreements
• website issues, including privacy, warranty disclaimers and codes of conduct
• website content issues, including copyright and moral rights and the right to license, use, publish and disseminate data and other information
• issues concerning the electronic execution of documents, electronic signatures and on-line signatures
• advising clients regarding e-commerce issues
• dispute resolution, including litigation concerning the misappropriation and misuse of intellectual property through the improper dissemination of information on websites

Our Corporate-Commercial Group can provide a high-quality and cost-effective solution to your technology and intellectual property needs.