Help Ensure Proper Protection for Your Clients
As an attorney representing clients who use or develop software or other technology, you can help ensure proper intellectual property protection by recommending that they leverage Iron Mountain’s comprehensive technology escrow services. Widely acknowledged in the legal community as the industry leader for technology escrow services, an Iron Mountain escrow account will significantly reduce your clients’ technology licensing risks.
At Iron Mountain, we take intellectual property management seriously and deliver our escrow services with the integrity you and your clients would expect — and, in fact, demand — from a trusted and neutral third party.
Whether your clients’ needs today are for one specific customer, a mission-critical application, or an entire risk management strategy, Iron Mountain provides flexible escrow solutions. Our services are governed the type of agreement that gives your client the optimal level of protection in each unique situation.
Iron Mountain’s escrow services include the key features required by all parties desiring escrow protection, but at the same time are flexible enough to accommodate additional requirements or individual needs.
Software and technology licensees are dependent on their vendors for support and maintenance of their licensed software or technology. They are exposed to risks if the vendor goes out of business or stops supporting the software or technology due to other unforeseen circumstances.
An escrow account with Iron Mountain protects licensees by allowing them to gain access to their vendor’s source code under specific conditions outlined in the escrow agreement. With an escrow in place, licensees have the opportunity to maintain that software without vendor support, while planning how to replace it.
While requesting escrow protection is a prudent business practice when licensing any software or technology of significance, you should seriously consider recommending escrow protection to your clients if:
Software and technology developers can appreciate the benefits of technology escrow protection too.
As a neutral third party, Iron Mountain dates and timestamps all materials deposited into escrow. This creates an audit trail of the development of software and technology and provides independent validation of the ownership of the related intellectual property.
Iron Mountain has no vested interest in defending one party over another, and has the trust of the courts to vouch for the existence and ownership of all types of intellectual property your clients might want to protect.
Verification: A Fundamental Element of Software Escrow
Although putting software in an escrow account ensures that code will be released if and when a release condition occurs, your licensee clients have no assurance that the software will be complete, usable, or even readable. Don’t forget to stress the importance of Escrow Verification Services to your licensee clients to validate the completeness, accuracy, and functionality of the deposit, and to help ensure that they would be able to read, recreate, and maintain the software upon release.
As an attorney, your billable time is extremely valuable, as is your need for flexibility in the services you recommend to your clients. Iron Mountain’s escrow professionals will work with you to define the right level of protection for your clients’ specific requirements, keeping your time investment under control. We have a variety of standard two- and three-party agreements to meet the needs of both developers (escrow depositors) and licensees (escrow beneficiaries).
You can rest easy knowing that your clients’ data is completely protected within Iron Mountain’s secure environment for data transfer, data storage, and account management of escrow deposits. Our security framework includes the following attributes:
NCC Group Software Resilience has acquired Iron Mountain’s Intellectual Property Management (IPM) business. For more information on the acquisition, please visit our dedicated information hub, or contact Iron Mountain IPM.
