Can a Purchase Order from a customer be considered part of Intelectual Property?
Diana BallesterosProject Management Specialist| EMERSON Isolation - Australia Australia
While I understand some documents attached to a purchase order may contain sensible information from customer that needs to be protected and their distribution would need to be restricted. I'm not able to establish if a Purchase Order issued from our customers should also be treated as IP.
Some customer and entities would directly specify through a disclaimer their documentation shall not be distributed to anyone else on the same business except those parties that required the information to provide an answer to customer.
But, overall I cannot find a global standard (even have looked into the WIPO) that defines a Purchase Order as Intellectual Property. Saving Changes...
Think of Heinz with their recipe for ketchup. Their recipe is definitely considered IP, and hence a purchase order containing all of those ingredients could reasonably be considered as such...
Kiron Saving Changes...
Manfred KressSenior Project Manager, PMP| Atos Information Technology GmbHTaunusstein, Germany
And think also about other industries recommending a high security level: chemical, power, IT, military... They all need a non disclosure of their purchase orders to not allow to draw conclusions of e.g. the market strategy, what or how they are working, how they protect their IT environment and so on. Saving Changes...
Diana BallesterosProject Management Specialist| EMERSON Isolation - Australia Australia
Thank you very much gentlemen.
When there is a non disclosure statement within the PO or has been previously discussed is understandable the PO as a document should be protected as part of IP. However, for the rest of the market when usually a PO is considered a transactional document, the majority of customers don't specify IP protection. Now, under current quality standards, an organization in general terms shall not distribute copies of the PO's to anyone external to the business and even such documents should be part of doc control; however, if copies of the PO are available for internal use; would that be considered IP violation? I guess, processes should be fixed to act by exemption; that is, to treat every order as a high-sensitive document. Saving Changes...
I would suspect a Purchase Order that have hight level of technical specification can contain valuable intellectual property. A Purchase Order with a list of ingredient could be close to revealing the recipe to a product, so the intellectual property.
A PO is always a sensitive document! Saving Changes...
Diana BallesterosProject Management Specialist| EMERSON Isolation - Australia Australia
thank you everyone for your replies.
I have seen a few examples now and I think is clearer for me. Saving Changes...
