Customer Property - 7.5.4 (intellectual property)

[Claes Gefvenberg]

Phil Schoner asked about material property in his thread Customer property - 7.5.4.

I'd like to extend that discussion to the note: Customer property can include intellectual property.
How do you all treat that issue? Any examples, hints or advice?

/Claes

 

[Graeme]

I spy, you spy, we all spy

Jim Wade said:
Here's another thought: IP is normally protected (patents, trademarks, copyright and so on). I guess in those cases we don't need to do much at all?

Jim,

First, I agree with your comments about intellectual property on paper or in people's heads ...

In addition, I believe part of protecting a customer's property (intellectual or physical) includes preventing others from running off with it. In this case, you have to prevent the intellectual property (IP) of customer A from being disclosed to any other customer. After all, it may include trade secrets, the take-away lunch list, a list of out-of-tolerance tools, or other nasty stuff. The organization has to ensure that customers B-Z cannot see any IP or data that relates to A, and vice-versa. And this would go beyond protection against negligence or malfeasance to include reasonable protection against theft or even accidental disclosure. In some cases, probably depending on the level of importance attached to the IP by both parties, it may require greater than usual protection against hazards such as fire.

I don't have any of my ISO 9000 standards with me right now so I can't refer to specific clauses. In addition, this is dealt with in other standards I use regularly - ISO 17025 and ANSI/NCSL Z540-1. (said documents also being at the office instead of here at home)

Any other thoughts?

Graeme

 

[Claes Gefvenberg]

I agree with both of you.

Another scenario: What about information your staff has never been given, but are able to figure out by themselves?

Example: Customer X suddenly starts buying large quantitys of raw material, thereby making it obvious that they have landed a big order. Customer Y may be very interested in that...

/Claes

 

[Claes Gefvenberg]

Hullo again...

I'm opening this thread up again. We are discussing it right now. The new aspect is that our Marketing Mgr had a chat with our lawyer to get his opinion about how to handle it.

We were recommended to put what we are already doing in writing (Now, there's a surprise, eh ): Keeping business secrets. That means a written procedure.

Question: Can anyone provide an example?

/Claes