You hired a designer to create your logo. A developer to build your website. A consultant to write your training manuals. You paid them. You assumed you owned the work. You may be wrong.

This is one of the most common and most expensive IP mistakes I see in growing businesses. Ownership of creative work doesn't automatically transfer to the person who paid for it — it belongs to the person who created it, unless the right documents say otherwise.

For employees, there's a legal concept called "work made for hire" — work created by an employee within the scope of their employment generally belongs to the employer. But that rule has limits. If your employee creates something outside the scope of their normal duties, or if the work was created before they joined your company, ownership gets complicated.

For independent contractors, the work-made-for-hire rule is narrower and requires a written agreement explicitly stating that the work is made for hire, and even then it only applies to certain categories of work defined by copyright law. Without that written agreement? The contractor owns the copyright, and you have a license at best.

I've seen businesses discover this problem at the worst possible moments — when they're trying to sell the company and the acquirer's attorney asks for chain of title documentation on all creative assets, or when a former contractor resurfaces and claims rights to a logo that's been on their building for five years.

The fix is straightforward: make sure your contractor agreements include a clear IP assignment clause that transfers ownership of all work product to your company. Employment agreements should do the same. These provisions cost almost nothing to include upfront and can save an enormous amount of money and stress later.

If you're not sure whether your agreements cover this, BLG can review them and close the gaps. Don't wait until you're in a transaction to find out who actually owns your brand.