Intellectual Property in Code

The value of a software company can be a set of files. Three different intellectual-property ideas get used around those files, and they do not substitute for each other. This is literacy. Read the current Nigerian statutes before a live opinion. The course does not invent cases.

Copyright. The source treats copyright as starting with the author — the person who wrote the code. That is why payment alone is a weak story, and why the next lesson is about assignment. Copyright is the right you are trying to move when a contractor finishes a module. It covers the expression in the code and, in many systems, original visual design. It does not, by itself, stop a rival from writing a different program that does the same job.

Trade secret. Algorithms, weights, and methods that are not published can be protected by being kept secret: limited access, no casual copies, contracts that forbid disclosure. A secret that is pushed to a public GitHub repository is on its way to not being a secret. Ask where the repository visibility is set.

Trade marks. Names, logos, and sometimes a distinctive product dress are a different register. They do not protect the code. They stop other people trading on the name. A startup can own its code and still be unable to use the name it wanted, or the reverse.

UI screenshots in a pitch deck are not a registration strategy. They are a reminder to ask which of the three ideas the founder thinks they have, and which one the paperwork actually supports.