Signature Block Non-Disclosure Agreement Template Made Easy

Initials non disclosure agreement

[Music] when you first start considering working with factories one of the immediate things that comes to mind obviously is how you're going to work with them you hear a lot of horror stories and very often people think oh I must I must put a contract in place with my factory and one day when the designers mentioned the word contract factory's factory is pretty much run for the hills they immediately assume that the reason a designer is mentioning the word contract is because there is a hidden agenda they're going to fleece them they're going to create problems that will be branded as troublemakers and the factory would generally a small factory particularly avoid working with the design who is wanting a contract to be signed between the two parties so what to do in this situation the number one way of ensuring that you you're not fleeced yourself and that the relationship goes well and you're not out of pocket is to build trust with the manufacturer so Trust is a really big problem in the industry there is next to no trust between designers and manufacturers in general especially when we are talking about startups and small factories and that is because of all the horror stories that are going around all the the stories of designers who got burned by factories and also factories the got burned by designers so many designers go declare bankruptcy especially in the UK it's a bit of a common practice for either factories and designers to just you know bankrupt themselves one day and the next week form a new company and start as if nothing has happened so building that trust is really important from day one and it's something that just like with a normal relationship it's built over time secondly instead of mentioning the word contract it release perhaps a better idea and I always encourage people is to discuss with the factory putting together a type of document like a code of conduct or like a working relationship guideline something putting together your perhaps you can take the onus on putting it together on you know listing the things that are important to you as a product owner and giving the opportunity to the factory to review it agree with it and perhaps also up to it so creating a document that is not one-sided but is created even if it's led by you but it's created with the factory together it's a much better idea and it's not something that you know then factory will the factory owner will feel mistrustful about and be against against this practice so remember to put something in place I think it's really important to put something in place and to document you know your responsibility their responsibilities and black-on-white to have a guideline to which you both keep in order for that relationship to work properly the second fear in these working relationships between designers and manufacturers is how do you protect your idea very often designers think that their idea is amazing and it has you know in the factory the potential danger would be that the factory would then show that idea to someone else or mass manufacture it etc so the natural reaction then for designers is to want to have an NDA non-disclosure agreement signed and some factories agreed to it others are object to it now I personally think that the NDA is don't dis non-disclosure agreements have been widely misunderstood by people and just the acronym NTIA just gets passed around and people advise others to have them in place without really realizing what it means and very often people Google on Google and get templates for NDS and this is what I think would be will protect their idea but the reality is that actually they're pretty useless it unless you have them drafted with you in mind they're pretty useless so my advice in these situations will be to either go to a lawyer and have a particular NDA drafted or if you were to find something from the internet read it thoroughly and customize it to yourself in to your situation what is really important for an NDA is that the NDA - non-disclosure agreement defines what is so special about your idea what is so unique about your idea so that if the factory was to copy it you know how would you determine that it was this Factory who led your idea out of the factory in a way or the copy that or gave it to someone else what is it that is so specific that you only you communicated to the factory and only they know and by disclosing and take a betrayed your trust and you can then take legal action against them so be very clear on this because unless there is something that is very particular to your idea or perhaps how there are certain design elements or perhaps how it is constructed unless there is something that is really unique about it your idea is not unique and we all go to the same exhibitions we all speak to in read the same material so it's very possible for someone else to come up with you know close to your idea it's not exactly the same and manufactured somewhere else secondly it is really important that if you were to go down the road of creating a non-disclosure agreement where you are quite clear about what is so special about your idea it is also very than important at that point to specified in the non-disclosure agreement for what period of time is this Agreement binding it is really not fair and correct to have a never-ending agreement because we live in such a fast-paced society with everything is being open and on the Internet we travel with social media nothing can remain hidden for very much time nothing can remain unique for very long time so for how long you perhaps banning or protecting your idea and asking this factory not to disclose anything so takeaway from this lesson is by all means I encourage people to put contracts in place but don't call it a contract and draft it together with your factory and secondly if you're really worried about your idea being copied I should have mentioned but there are other ways of protecting your idea there I would put it in the lesson notes but there are certain trade bodies like an organization called acid that their main concern is how to protect and register designs so perhaps looking to them sign up to them design patent trademark your design etc but if you are so worried about your factory a trust is your biggest protector there is build up trust but if from the outset of a relationship you want a higher level of trust by all means look into NDIS have someone draft one that is specific to you or if you are really set on getting one from the internet just make sure you read it that you understand it and you customize it to yourself what is unique about your idea what is that you want actually to protect against being copied and for what period of time