6 Things You Must Know to Avoid the Legal Pitfalls When Developing an App
App market is a billion-dollar business. As a full-fledged industry, it has its set of legal issues ranging from patent design and trademark copyrights to company registration and app name rights. So if you are not familiarized with these grave legal matters, you are likely to commit legal blunders that could cost your business.
Considering the sensitivity associated with legal issues of app industry, we present here 6pitfalls you must know in order to avoid trapping in litigation:
1. Protection of Intellectual Property
When launching an app, it is first important to register the intellectual property of your product. Intellectual property includes everything that encompasses the creative and technical components of your app. This would include everything from the name of the app to its logo.
Failure to register all these intellectual property can put your business at the stake of theft and you might end up fighting the legal battle for your own intellectual property.Therefore, it is important have all these Mobile Application Development intellectual property registered to legally protect your app from vested interests.
2. Ownership Agreement of Intellectual Property
If your app is an in-house product, you need to have an ownership agreement with the creative and technical team to ensure its rights of use. Similarly, if you outsource a team to create the app, you need to ensure who get what intellectual property (IP) rights of the app.
You can even form a joint-partnership with in which each of the participants would be able to claim the rights of use. So you both will benefit from profits of the product.
3. Data Protection and Confidentiality of Users
The privacy of users is central to policy of any business. Considering the gravity of this issue, it is important to secure confidentiality of your users with a comprehensive privacy policy. It should include the rights of personal data and sharing of information and it should abide by the privacy rights of the region where the app will be available.
Having a privacy policy protects you against breach of confidentiality rights of the users and avoids the possibilities of legal infringements as a result of misuse of personal information of clients.
4. Registration of Business
Just like any other industry, the app business has to be registered under a limited liability corporation (LLC) license to stay safe of from potential financial risks involved in legal settlements. So if your business bankrupts, you will be able to immune your personal commodities from being auctioned.
Registering your business under the category of limited liability corporation (LLC)restricts the liabilities only to your business assets and decrease the potential loss of your personal assets.
5. Distribution Policy
Once your app is ready, it will be distributed to online platforms where users can download the app. However, it needs to comply with the terms of use of the platforms. Currently, there are two major platforms to showcase your app: Google Play and Apple App Store. Both of these platforms underlie a compliance policy for submission of app.
Therefore, you should ensure that you fulfill the terms of use prior to submitting an app on any of these platforms.The use of your app must be in compliance with policy of the platform where you intend to publish your app.
6. Terms of Use
The term of use defines the laws regarding the use of your app, its misuse and the legal implications of a misuse. Therefore, it is important to have a policy on terms of use in place so that you can ensure legitimate use of your app according to the compliance policy of your company.
Failure to create a terms of use increase the risk of exploitation of your app for wrongful acts which can lead to costly legal battles.
Developing an app can be a risky business if you overlook the above-mentioned legal issues. So you must include them in your to-do lists of priority tasks. Best of luck!
Author Bio
Jenny Jones is a professional app developer who works for Essay Help Deal UK. In her leisure time, she enjoys writing about app market. You can catch him on Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus.