:AACE CERTIFICATION 2009-2010:

I’m almost finishing on the contract development for engineering service on call, the topic on my week #2 weekly blog. I have completed the scope of works, General Term & Condition (GTC), Special Term and Condition (STC) and Pricing Schedule. Specifically to the engineer billing rate, we have an agreement how to develop the rate breakdown include base wage level, fringe benefit and overhead/disbursement costs according to the book theory in the Engineering Economy 14th Edition and Skill & Knowledge Cost Engineering 5th Edition Revised. All of the documents have been sent to PT Inco legal department to review the contents and one of the interesting issues in the discussion now is Intellectual Property Rights (IP Rights).

Intellectual Property Right has never been included in the contract clause document and I think that this point is not really important for both side, the company and the contractor. In the past, the company data, design, calculation and drawings shall also become the contractor property and vice versa. However, PT Inco legal department intent to put the Intellectual Property Right into the contract clause for the reason to protect the company and contractor property from illegal utilization by unauthorized people or company. As the owner, it will be a nightmare for the company since the contractor will keep the engineering deliverable produced and most likely the company has to pay each time the company need these information.

Personally, I don’t have enough knowledge on the Intellectual Property theory and implementation. My common sense is protecting the intellectual property as like intellectual monopolies, preventing science progress and free culture movement. Therefore, I’m still questioning why do we need to have the Intellectual Property Right? What actually do we want to protect? Does the nature of science and technology require protection? How should the right expressed? What the rational reason for Intellectual Property Right implementation?

Going through the web and found a lots reference of Intellectual Property Right, but I’m struggling to find the answer of my question above. I found in the Wikipedia that Intellectual Property is a number of distinct types of legal monopolies over the creation of mind, both artistic and commercial, and the corresponding fields of law. Under intellectual property law, owners are granted certain exclusive right to variety intangible assets, such as musical, literary and artistic works, discoveries and invention and words, phrases, symbol and design. Common type of intellectual property includes copyright, trademarks, patents, industrial design rights and trade secret in some jurisdictions1.

Yet for sure, Intellectual Property right now becomes a common practice all over the world. But I’m still in arguing that for engineering design intellectual property right put into the engineering contract clause. I don’t want the contractor make a design for example pump house and we have to pay the royalty fee if we are going to build other typical pump house.

I need some help to show me the right thing to do with regard to the engineering design Intellectual Property Right. Is it the right or mandatory clause to be put into the contract document? If so what is the contract clause for engineering design work? Dr. Paul, I need your help to guide me on this and provide me a reference.

Sorowako, November 6th, 2009

Muhammad Asril

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property