May 2021 - Bay of Plenty Business News

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18 BAY OF PLENTY BUSINESS NEWS May 2021 NEWSBRIEF Startup Weekend Tauranga | Wellbeing Friday 14 May to Sunday 16 May Basestation, 148 Durham St, Tauranga Priority One is getting right behind this event and looking for community-minded people who want to improve the well-being of our community and work together with a team of like-minded people to come to impactful solutions. What is Startup Weekend? Startup Weekend is an entrepreneurial event organised by volunteers all over the world. For the last nine years, Startup Weekend Tauranga has brought together innovators, problem solvers, marketers, developers, designers and more. In just 54 hours participants meet, form a team, develop an idea, and showcase their startup concept to a panel of Judges. Why should I attend? Pitch an idea, learn a new skill, talk to as many people as possible, and step out of your comfort zone. It’ll be the best thing you do that weekend! If you want to put yourself in the shoes of an entrepreneur, register now for the best weekend of your life. More information and register at Priority One. Enabling can be disabling After nearly 15 years in credit management and almost six in the repossession industry I have noticed a few trends. One of these is that people will not learn from the consequences of their actions if they do not have to face them and taking away the ability of the debtor to deal with the matter as soon as possible does not help them in any way. Time after time we pursue a debtor for either collection or repossession only to be blocked by a well-meaning parent or family member, who knowingly shields the debtor from speaking to us thinking that they are doing them a favour. This could not be further from the truth. You see, generally the longer a debt is outstanding or the more work that is involved in locating the debtor, the higher the fees and the more serious the potential legal consequences. Often expensive court action is required where a simple and inexpensive phone call or field visit could have resolved the matter. Another well-meaning but ultimately damaging action taken by people, particularly parents, is repeatedly bailing debtors out of debts and then expressing surprise when more debts crop up. “If you take away the pain you take away the lesson” is a saying that a good friend of mine says often and I feel it is very applicable here. The only lesson that is learned from not having to deal with the consequences of poor decisions is that poor decisions have no consequences. I have seen parents literally bankrupt themselves bailing errant adult The only lesson that is learned from not having to deal with the consequences of poor decisions is that poor decisions have no consequences.” children out of a string of debts. Whether this be out of a sense of shame, guilt or obligation it does not help and this is made obvious by the behavior repeating itself and the pain shared not reduced. Suggestions for scenarios CREDIT CONTROL After seeing how hundreds of the above scenarios have panned out, here is my suggestion. Instead of helping a debtor avoid a debt or paying it for them there is a way that can achieve the goal of the debt going away or at the very least limit the extra costs and interaction with lovely agents such as myself and my collegues. Encourange the debtor to run a free credit check through www. mycreditfile.co.nz or www.creditsimple.co.nz and take this to either a > BY NICK KERR Nick Kerr is a Business Advisor at NJK Advisory Ltd. He is also director of International Private Investigations Ltd. Nick can be reached at nick@nzipi.com budgeting advice service or contact each creditor directly and offer a payment plan. You will both be surprised at how nice and accommodating creditors can be once a debtor makes contact offering a payment plan. No matter how small the payments are, as long as it is reasonable, this way not only is the problem confronted head and the anxiety and stress reduced the lesson is not lost, which will make it less likely for the situation to reoccur. Just a thought. ALTOGETHER At Bayleys, we believe relationships are what businesses are built on and how they succeed. We understand that to maximise the return on your property you need: Professional property management A business partner that understands your views and goals Contact the Bayleys Tauranga Commercial Property Management team today. Bayleys Tauranga Commercial Property Management 07 579 0609 jan.cooney@bayleystauranga.co.nz SUCCESS REALTY LTD, BAYLEYS, LICENSED UNDER THE REA ACT 2008 ALTOGETHER BETTER Residential / Commercial / Rural / Property Services
May 2021 BAY OF PLENTY BUSINESS NEWS 19 WFH doesn’t mean you’re TOOC In pre-Covid days, if you created copyright works such as drawings or source code as part of your job, the odds are you would have done so during “normal office hours” at your desk rather than at 9 o’clock at night in the comfort of your own home. It would have been straightforward to establish who was the owner of copyright (TOOC) in those drawings or source code. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ISSUES > BY BEN CAIN Ben Cain is a Senior Associate at James & Wells and a Resolution Institute-accredited mediator. He can be contacted at 07 928 4470 (Tauranga), 07 957 5660 (Hamilton), and benc@jaws.co.nz. In these Covid-affected times, however, many office-based employees now work flexible hours and work from home (WFH). Indeed, the 8.30am – 5pm day in the office has almost become a rarity rather than the norm. As a result, ascertaining who is the owner of copyright in drawings or source code may be a little harder to discern; or at least, the topic may be open for greater debate. The need to be sure of who owns what in an employment context is perhaps more important now than it used to be. The recent case of Michael Penhallurick v MD5 Ltd [2021] EWHC 293 in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court in England, although relating to events pre-Covid, illustrates this need. Penhallurick, a former employee of MD5, claimed ownership of copyright in eight works relating to a technique he named “Virtual Forensic Computing” or “VFC”.* The eight works comprised different versions of the software code (literary works), a graphic user interface (artistic work) and a user guide (literary work). It was established that the first two works – the earliest version of the VFC source code and the object code compiled from this code – were created in 2005 and 2006, before Penhallurick was employed by MD5 in November 2006. The Court found these works were not relevant to Penhallurick’s claim and consequently focused its assessment on the remaining six works created by him after he joined MD5. Identifying the author The Court found Penhallurick was the author of the six remaining works and therefore was the first owner of copyright in them – unless any were made in the course of his employment by MD5 pursuant to the IP clause in Penhallurick’s employment agreements, in which case MD5 was the first owner. Which of these was the case turned on the meaning of “in the course of his employment”. Why? Because of the poor wording of the “Job Titles and Duties” and intellectual property clauses in Penhallurick’s first employment agreement. The Court ultimately found that all of the works had been created by Penhallurick in the course of his employment with MD5. Of particular interest to this author, and relevance to this article given the current fashion for working flexible hours from home, however, is the Court’s finding in relation to the third and fourth copyright works (“VFC Version 1” and the graphical user interface (“GUI”) for VFC Version 1) created by Penhallurick in 2007. In respect of these works, the Court said: “[66] … It seems that Mr Penhallurick took on the task [of developing VFC Version 1 and GUI] with enthusiasm, to the extent that he took his In these Covid-affected times, however, many office-based employees now work flexible hours and work from home (WFH).” work home some of the time. His staff annual appraisal of August 2007 suggests that much of the work must have been done during working hours at MD5. “But whatever the exact proportion done at home, it does not displace the strong and primary indication that it was work done in the course of his employment. The fact that an employee does work at home is relevant to the question of whether the work is of a nature to fall within the scope of the duties for which he is paid but it may or may not carry much weight. “Where it is otherwise clear that the work is of such a nature, in my view the place where the employee chooses to do the work will not generally make any difference. The same applies to the ownership of the tools the employee chooses to use, here sometimes Mr Penhallurick’s own computer system. “If it is clear that the employee is being paid to carry out a task as agreed with his employer, he may choose to use tools supplied by his employer or his own tools; either way, the task is carried out in the course of his employment.” Although it is not stated, I am confident the same reasoning applies to the time of day the employee chooses to do the work – that is, it doesn’t matter whether you do the work at 10am or 10pm, if the work is carried out in the course of your employment then any copyright rights in it will be owned by your employer. What employees and employers should do Standing back, Penhallurick’s case identifies two important ‘‘take homes” for both employers and employees: • First, if an employer is going to make use of copyright works created by an employee before that person is an employee, then the employer should have the employee assign copyright in those works to the employer at the same time the employee becomes an employee. Alternatively, execute a licence agreement with the employee at the same time the employee becomes an employee to enable those works to be lawfully used by the employer; • Second, the employer should ensure employment agreements, but particularly those with employees whose job it is to create intellectual property, adequately identify an employee’s role and scope of duties so that it is clear what resulting intellectual property the employer is laying claim to by virtue of the employment agreement, irrespective of what time of day and where that intellectual property is created. * VFC is a method of retrieving an image of the hard disk without writing on it, then booting up the image on a virtual machine so that the image can be investigated. In developing the technique, Penhallurick had used a freely available product called VM Software to set up the replica of the target computer’s hardware and operating system. As computer programs generally have inbuilt safeguards to prevent them from being manipulated in this way, the method developed by Penhallurick involved a password bypass feature. BEWARE OF FOREIGN IMITATIONS. There’s no shortage of great ideas in New Zealand. But for an innovative bunch, we’re not the best at realising the full potential of our innovations, particularly when exporting them. At James & Wells, we can identify your competitive edge, offer business strategies for specific markets and help you own and leverage your intellectual property to ensure no one steals the fruit of your labour. www.jaws.co.nz | +64 7 928 4470
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May 2021 - Bay of Plenty Business News

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