Architectural IP Checklist: Registration Scope, Drawing Deposits, Ownership Terms, Photography Rights, and Infringement Comparison

By Casey Scott McKay · 2024-01-31

This checklist runs an architectural practice's intellectual property against the dates that actually decide outcomes. It opens with the two registrations most practices file only one of, the deposit that frames what is claimed, and the design development filing date that determines whether statutory remedies exist at all. It then fixes ownership across employees, contract staff, visualisers, and sub-consultants, because drawings belong to whoever made them absent a signed writing. It works the four owner agreement clauses that decide construction disputes, the model schedule and object library carve-out, and the photography register that addresses the field's most common actual infringement. It closes with the independent creation record, the filtered comparison, and enforcement triage.

IP and Technology > Copyright | Checklist | Published 31 January 2024 - Updated 15 April 2026 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us

Summary. This checklist runs an architectural practice's intellectual property against the dates that actually decide outcomes. It opens with the two registrations most practices file only one of, the deposit that frames what is claimed, and the design development filing date that determines whether statutory remedies exist at all. It then fixes ownership across employees, contract staff, visualisers, and sub-consultants, because drawings belong to whoever made them absent a signed writing. It works the four owner agreement clauses that decide construction disputes, the model schedule and object library carve-out, and the photography register that addresses the field's most common actual infringement. It closes with the independent creation record, the filtered comparison, and enforcement triage.

Keywords: architectural IP checklist · dual registration · deposit selection · registration timing · publication events · contract staff assignment · sub-consultant chain · instruments of service · licence scope · termination for non-payment · completion by others · model schedule · reliance terms · object library carve-out · photography register · independent creation record · filtered comparison · access evidence · enforcement triage · practice brand

How to use this checklist

| Phase | What it covers | |---|---| | 1 | Coverage and date of design | | 2 | The two registrations | | 3 | Deposits | | 4 | Registration timing | | 5 | Publication events | | 6 | Employees | | 7 | Contract staff and visualisers | | 8 | Sub-consultants | | 9 | Joint ventures and competitions | | 10 | Owner agreement: licence scope | | 11 | Owner agreement: termination | | 12 | Contractor and downstream | | 13 | The model schedule | | 14 | The object library | | 15 | Photography | | 16 | Prototype and components | | 17 | The practice brand | | 18 | Independent creation record | | 19 | Filtered comparison | | 20 | Enforcement triage |

Boxes marked [Gate] must clear before work begins, before a filing window closes, or before a demand letter goes out.

The matter. The design was copied, the access was provable, and the claim was worth almost nothing — because the registration was filed after the developer broke ground and the plan set had been drawn by a contract technician who never signed anything.

Phase 1. Coverage and date of design

[ ] [Gate] Establish the date of design before assessing any claim.
- Why. The Architectural Works Copyright Protection Act applies to works created on or after its effective date and to unconstructed buildings embodied in plans as of that date. Older buildings sit under the pre-1990 regime where separability governed and protection was nearly nothing. See Architectural Works Copyright Protection Act.
[ ] Confirm the subject is a building within the statutory definition at 17 U.S.C. § 101 — a habitable structure or one used by humans.
- Trap. Bridges, dams, walkways, tents, boats, and mobile homes are generally outside the category, leaving only the drawings.
[ ] Confirm landscape, site, and civil work is treated as drawings only, since the built result is generally not a building.
[ ] Confirm interiors are assessed as part of the architectural work, or as separable elements under Star Athletica v. Varsity Brands.
[ ] Record the duration position under 17 U.S.C. § 302, which differs for individual authors and works made for hire.

Phase 2. The two registrations

[ ] [Gate] File both: the architectural work, and the technical drawings as pictorial and graphic works.
- Why. 17 U.S.C. § 113 preserves the rule that copyright in a work portraying a useful article does not extend to making the article, so building from a plan is not drawing infringement. The architectural work registration is what reaches construction.
- Trap. Registering only the drawings, which is the most common error in the field and leaves half the claim unavailable.
[ ] Identify the date of construction on the architectural work application where the building exists.
[ ] Confirm the correct author and claimant on both.
[ ] [Gate] Confirm ownership before filing, since a registration naming the practice as author of a consultant's drawings with no assignment is inaccurate.
[ ] Consider group filing options where the practice registers many projects.
[ ] Record both application and registration numbers in the project record.

Phase 3. Deposits

[ ] Deposit identifying material rather than the full set, per the applicable regulations.
[ ] [Gate] Deposit material that shows the protectable expression — plans, elevations, sections, and the distinctive details.
- Trap. Depositing a cover sheet and a site plan, which frames the claim around material that filters away entirely.
[ ] For the architectural work, include views showing the overall form and the arrangement of spaces.
[ ] For the drawings, deposit the sheets carrying the design content rather than the schedules and notes.
[ ] Retain an exact copy of what was deposited, filed with the registration number.
[ ] Confirm the deposit matches the design as built, or record the differences.
[ ] Where the design changed materially after registration, consider a supplementary or new registration.

Phase 4. Registration timing

[ ] [Gate] File both registrations at completion of design development, as a standing practice.
- Why. 17 U.S.C. § 412 permits statutory damages and attorney fees only where registration preceded the infringement or occurred within three months of first publication, and copying in this field surfaces when construction starts.
[ ] Run a quarterly filing sweep for projects reaching design development.
[ ] Do not defer filing to the point of a problem, because by then the window has closed.
[ ] Confirm registration has issued before suit under 17 U.S.C. § 411, per Fourth Estate Public Benefit v. Wall-Street.com.
[ ] Budget for special handling where construction is proceeding and the matter is live.
[ ] Record the filing date and the registration date in the project record.

Phase 5. Publication events

[ ] Record each potential publication event with its date: plan set issued to bidders; planning or permitting submission; marketing release; portfolio or press publication; first construction.
- Why. Whether these constitute publication is genuinely uncertain in architecture, and the answer sets the three-month window.
[ ] [Gate] Register early enough that the publication question never has to be answered.
[ ] Note that planning submissions and public hearings are also the most common route by which a defendant obtains access.
[ ] Record who received the drawings and when, because that record supports the access element later.
[ ] Apply confidentiality markings to issued sets where the client relationship permits.

Phase 6. Employees

[ ] Confirm salaried architects and technicians are employees in fact under the agency test in Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid.
[ ] Confirm project work falls within the scope of employment, so ownership vests under 17 U.S.C. § 101.
[ ] Confirm the employment agreement addresses work created outside hours or off premises where relevant.
[ ] Confirm the agreement addresses what a departing designer may show in a portfolio, since this is contractual and is best settled at hiring.
[ ] Obtain exit acknowledgements recording access and confirming project files have not been retained.

Phase 7. Contract staff and visualisers

[ ] [Gate] Confirm every contract technician, freelance designer, visualiser, renderer, and modeller executed a present-tense assignment before work began.
- Why. Architectural drawings are not among the enumerated work made for hire categories and 17 U.S.C. § 204 requires a signed writing. Without one, they own the work.
- Trap. Engagement by purchase order with no intellectual property terms, which is standard practice in most offices.
[ ] Confirm the assignment covers sketches, studies, models, and rejected schemes, not merely delivered files.
[ ] Confirm offshore engagements are covered, including where the practice contracts through an agency.
[ ] Obtain confirmatory assignments for past work on projects that matter.
[ ] Fix the engagement template rather than papering each engagement individually.
[ ] Record the gap list and close it before an enforcement need arises.

Phase 8. Sub-consultants

[ ] List every consultant contributing protectable work: structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, civil, landscape, acoustic, lighting, facade, and specialist.
[ ] [Gate] Confirm each agreement grants the prime at least what the prime grants the owner, and preferably assigns.
- Why. A prime that cannot show it holds the sub-consultants' rights cannot grant the owner what the owner agreement promises, and the gap surfaces at enforcement or in diligence.
[ ] Confirm the sub-consultant agreements permit the prime to sublicense to the owner and to the contractor.
[ ] Confirm they address model contributions as well as drawings.
[ ] Confirm they survive the sub-consultant's termination or insolvency.
[ ] Confirm any sub-sub-consultant engagements flow the obligations down.
[ ] Map the chain once per project and record it, because reconstructing it years later is unpleasant.

Phase 9. Joint ventures and competitions

[ ] Where design architect and architect of record collaborate, state whether the result is a joint work.
- Why. Absent agreement, joint authors each hold an undivided interest and may license without the other's consent, subject to accounting.
[ ] Specify who may register, who may enforce, and how recoveries are shared.
[ ] Specify credit and attribution obligations.
[ ] Specify what each party may show in its own portfolio and marketing.
[ ] [Gate] Read competition entry terms before submitting.
- Trap. Competitions frequently claim broad rights in submissions, and a practice may grant away an unbuilt scheme it intended to develop elsewhere.
[ ] Confirm whether unsuccessful entries are returned, destroyed, or retained by the promoter.
[ ] Confirm whether the promoter may build the scheme without engaging the entrant.
[ ] Register significant competition schemes before submission where the terms permit.

Phase 10. Owner agreement: licence scope

[ ] Confirm the architect retains ownership of the instruments of service. See instruments of service in standard design contracts.
[ ] [Gate] Define the licence: this project, this site, for construction, occupation, maintenance, and alteration of the completed building.
[ ] Confirm the licence is non-exclusive.
[ ] Confirm whether it extends to future phases, and price them separately if so.
[ ] Confirm whether reuse on another project or site is permitted — and default to no.
[ ] Where reuse is contemplated, define what a reuse instance is and price it.
[ ] Confirm whether the owner may use the documents for marketing the completed project.
[ ] Confirm the licence does not extend to the practice's object library.

Phase 11. Owner agreement: termination

[ ] [Gate] Include a termination-for-non-payment provision under which the licence terminates.
- Why. This is the only real leverage on a troubled project, and it is negotiated less often than any other term.
[ ] Specify whether the licence survives termination for other reasons, conditioned on full payment.
[ ] Specify whether the owner may engage another architect to complete the project using the documents, and on what conditions.
[ ] [Gate] Require an indemnity where the owner uses the instruments without the architect's involvement.
- Why. Liability follows the drawings whether or not the licence did.
[ ] Specify what is delivered on termination — drawings, models, native files, or exports.
[ ] Confirm the provisions survive assignment of the owner agreement or novation to a contractor.

Phase 12. Contractor and downstream

[ ] Confirm what the owner-contractor agreement grants the contractor and whether it may retain documents after completion.
- Trap. A contractor with an unrestricted set can build the design again on another site.
[ ] Confirm shop drawing and submittal ownership, since they are derivative of the architect's documents.
[ ] Confirm what a fabricator may do with a detail it develops from the documents.
[ ] For design-build, read the flow-down terms, since the architect works for the contractor and the non-payment leverage weakens.
[ ] For novation, confirm what intellectual property terms transfer with the team.
[ ] Confirm subcontractors receiving portions of the documents are bound.
[ ] Confirm the documents carry an appropriate notice and use restriction on their face.

Phase 13. The model schedule

[ ] [Gate] Attach a model schedule to the owner agreement and to every consultant agreement. See building information modelling protocols.
[ ] State who owns the federated model given multi-party contribution.
[ ] State the level of development delivered at each milestone.
[ ] [Gate] State reliance expressly — whether any party may rely on model geometry for fabrication or quantities.
- Why. Reliance is the liability question rather than the ownership question, and it is the one that costs money. A model delivered for coordination is not a model delivered for fabrication.
[ ] State responsibility for the accuracy of contributions authored by others.
[ ] State what the owner may do with the model after completion — facilities management, alterations, another project.
[ ] State whether native files or only exports are delivered, and on what events.
[ ] Confirm manufacturer content incorporated into the model is redistributable, or exclude it.
[ ] Confirm survey, environmental, and simulation data ownership and reuse rights.

Phase 14. The object library

[ ] Identify the practice's proprietary content: families, components, details, templates, standard assemblies, and scripts.
[ ] [Gate] Carve it out expressly from anything delivered to an owner or a consultant.
- Trap. A broad deliverables clause transfers years of accumulated investment that nobody intended to grant.
[ ] Confirm the carve-out appears in the owner agreement, the model schedule, and every consultant agreement.
[ ] Confirm departing staff may not take the library, and that the employment agreement says so.
[ ] Confirm content acquired from third parties is licensed for the uses the practice makes of it.
[ ] Maintain the library separately from project files, so the boundary is operationally real rather than contractual only.

Phase 15. Photography

[ ] [Gate] Negotiate a broad licence at commissioning — all media, perpetual, worldwide, with sublicensing to project participants and press — or an assignment where budget permits.
[ ] Maintain an image register: photograph, project, photographer, date, licence scope, expiry, permitted media.
[ ] [Gate] Audit usage annually against the register.
- Why. Exceeding photography licences in awards submissions, website redesigns, and social media is the field's most common actual infringement, and it is committed by architects.
[ ] Confirm renderings, drone footage, and contractor site photography each have their own terms.
[ ] Obtain releases where individuals are identifiable, particularly in occupied buildings.
[ ] Confirm attribution obligations in both directions.
[ ] Note that 17 U.S.C. § 120 permits anyone to photograph a constructed building ordinarily visible from a public place, so neither the practice nor the owner controls images of the work.
[ ] Note the corollary: the practice may photograph and publish images of other architects' buildings, subject to any trademark question where a building functions as a source identifier per Rock and Roll Hall of Fame v. Gentile Productions.

Phase 16. Prototype and components

[ ] Identify whether the practice has a repeat model — retail format, restaurant, housing type, school, distribution facility.
[ ] Register the prototype once, and register significant variants, rather than each site adaptation.
[ ] Define in the licence: number of instances, territories, whether adaptation is permitted, who owns adaptations, and termination consequences.
[ ] Confirm site adaptations are treated as derivative works with stated ownership.
[ ] Build the trade dress record through consistent execution, since repetition is what creates secondary meaning and Two Pesos v. Taco Cabana treats this category favourably.
[ ] Assess functionality honestly under TrafFix Devices v. Marketing Displays, since most building form is driven by use.
[ ] Identify proprietary components suitable for design patents under 35 U.S.C. § 171 — signage systems, facade modules, fixtures, canopies, curtain wall details.
[ ] [Gate] File design patents before any public disclosure, since most foreign systems have no grace period.
[ ] Note the term under 35 U.S.C. § 173 matches a product generation with no maintenance fees.

Phase 17. The practice brand

[ ] Register the practice name and any distinctive logo.
- Trap. Most practices have traded for decades without registering the one asset that appreciates.
[ ] Confirm the classes cover architectural services and any adjacent services offered.
[ ] Confirm the entity holding the mark is the entity trading under it, and that restructurings did not leave it behind.
[ ] Confirm marks are recorded correctly after any merger or partner change.
[ ] Set a watch service for confusingly similar filings.
[ ] Docket declarations and renewals.
[ ] Address name use on partner departure in the partnership or employment agreement, before it arises.
[ ] Register in foreign markets where the practice works or intends to.

Phase 18. Independent creation record

[ ] Retain dated concept sketches in a system recording the date independently.
[ ] Retain alternative schemes considered and rejected, with reasons.
[ ] Retain site analysis: orientation, topography, access, setbacks, constraints.
[ ] Retain the client programme and brief, with revisions.
[ ] Retain code and regulatory constraints that drove arrangement.
[ ] Retain precedent research showing what was drawn on and how it was changed.
[ ] Retain consultant coordination records where structure or services drove the plan.
[ ] Retain model version history.
[ ] [Gate] Confirm the record would support an independent creation defence, and would identify the arbitrary choices if the practice is the claimant.
[ ] Retain for the life of the copyright plus the limitations period.
[ ] Record access events — who received drawings, when, and through what channel.

Phase 19. Filtered comparison

[ ] [Gate] Run the filtered comparison before sending anything.
[ ] Filter out functional elements dictated by the building's use.
[ ] Filter out code and regulatory requirements — egress, fire separation, accessibility, energy, setbacks, height.
[ ] Filter out site constraints — orientation, topography, access, lot shape.
[ ] Filter out market expectations and stylistic convention, which operate as scenes a faire.
[ ] Filter out standard features, which the statutory definition at 17 U.S.C. § 101 excludes expressly.
[ ] Filter out public domain and prior designs.
[ ] Compare what remains — the arbitrary choices, the particular combination where alternatives existed, the specific proportions and resolutions.
- Why. Zalewski v. Cicero Builder Dev is the framework, and it frequently leaves too little to compare.
[ ] Establish access: planning submissions, marketing, portfolios, site visits, or personnel movement.
[ ] Instruct an expert where the matter proceeds, and expect the comparison to be where it is decided.

Phase 20. Enforcement triage

[ ] [Gate] Confirm four things before sending: both registrations issued; the ownership chain holds for every contributor; the owner agreement does not authorise the conduct; and the filtered comparison leaves something to compare.
[ ] Builder constructing from the plans. Strongest case — both copyrights engaged, access usually provable. Move quickly, because remedies narrow as construction advances.
[ ] Competing practice with a similar design. Run the filter first; what survives is frequently too little.
[ ] Former employee with the files. Copyright plus trade secret plus employment agreement; the access logs are the evidence.
[ ] Client completing with another architect. A licence question decided by the termination and completion provisions, not by copyright.
[ ] Photographer selling images of a completed building. No claim under 17 U.S.C. § 120. Say so.
[ ] Owner altering or demolishing. No claim, unless a work of visual art incorporated into the building engages 17 U.S.C. § 106A.
[ ] Assess remedies: injunctive relief with proportionality problems for a partly built structure; damages and profits under 17 U.S.C. § 501; statutory damages where 17 U.S.C. § 412 permits.
[ ] Anticipate defences: thin protection, independent creation, express or implied licence, and the standard-features exclusion.
[ ] Record claims declined for lack of surviving expression, because a healthy programme has entries there.

Phase 21. Cadence

[ ] Per engagement. Present-tense assignment before work begins, for every non-employee contributor.
[ ] Per project start. Owner agreement provisions negotiated; model schedule attached; sub-consultant chain confirmed.
[ ] Per design development completion. Both registrations filed.
[ ] Per photography commission. Broad licence negotiated; image register updated.
[ ] Per publication event. Date recorded in the project record.
[ ] Per departure. Exit acknowledgement; file access closed; portfolio permissions confirmed.
[ ] Quarterly. Registration sweep; competition entries reviewed before submission.
[ ] Annually. Photography audit; template review; mark renewals; foreign notes refreshed; creation records confirmed complete.
[ ] On event. New market, repeat-model licence, design-build engagement, novation, practice merger, or a report of copying.

Phase 22. Metrics

[ ] Projects with both registrations filed at design development.
[ ] Registrations within the 17 U.S.C. § 412 window.
[ ] Non-employee engagements with a present-tense assignment executed before work. Target one hundred per cent.
[ ] Sub-consultant chains confirmed to support the owner grant.
[ ] Owner agreements with all four negotiated clauses present.
[ ] Owner agreements with a termination-for-non-payment provision.
[ ] Projects with a model schedule and an object library carve-out.
[ ] Photography usages within licence scope.
[ ] Projects with a complete independent creation record.
[ ] Matters where the filtered comparison ran before a letter went out.
[ ] Claims declined for lack of surviving expression.
[ ] The one that matters. Whether any enforceable claim was lost to a late registration or an ownership gap. Both are preventable administratively, and recurrence means the calendar or the template is not working.

Outcome. The copied design produced nothing, and the two reasons were both administrative. The registration had been filed after the developer broke ground, so 17 U.S.C. § 412 put statutory damages and fees out of reach and left actual damages nobody could prove. And the plan set had been drawn by a contract technician engaged on a purchase order, so the practice did not own what it was asserting. Both were fixed in a fortnight and neither cost anything. A quarterly filing sweep now files both registrations at design development for every project, and the first matter after that change settled in six weeks on a licence fee plus costs. The engagement template carries a present-tense assignment covering sketches, studies, and rejected schemes, and confirmatory assignments were obtained for the four live projects with gaps. The owner agreement gained the four negotiated clauses, and the termination-for-non-payment provision resolved a fee dispute the following year without a claim being filed. A model schedule and an object library carve-out went into every agreement. And the image register found eleven photography usages outside licence scope, all regularised by negotiation before anyone complained.

Phase 23. Working internationally

[ ] Confirm whether images of the practice's buildings may be used commercially in the jurisdiction.
- Trap. Freedom of panorama varies, and some systems restrict commercial use of images of public buildings — reversing the domestic assumption for the practice's own marketing.
[ ] Confirm whether moral rights survive delivery, since non-waivable integrity and attribution rights for architects are recognised in many systems.
- Why. That is the opposite of the domestic position under 17 U.S.C. § 120, and a client altering a building abroad needs local advice.
[ ] Confirm whether employee work vests automatically, since some systems require an express assignment even for employees.
[ ] Confirm registered and unregistered design regimes that may reach components and prefabricated systems.
[ ] Confirm attribution obligations in foreign project agreements, which may be legal requirements rather than courtesies.
[ ] Confirm design filing deadlines run from first disclosure with no grace period.
[ ] Maintain a short note per jurisdiction covering those answers, built once and updated on market entry.

Phase 24. Scaling to the practice

[ ] Sole practitioner or small studio. Both registrations on a quarterly sweep; a present-tense assignment in every engagement letter; a one-page licence schedule in the owner agreement; a broad photography licence; and the practice name registered.
[ ] Mid-size practice. Add the sub-consultant chain review, the model schedule, the object library carve-out, the image register with an annual audit, and the creation record as a standing project requirement.
[ ] Large or multi-office practice. Add centralised registration, a foreign note per jurisdiction, design patents on proprietary components, and departing-staff exit procedures.
[ ] Practice with a repeat model. Prototype registration, component design patents, instance-limited licences, and a trade dress record built through consistent execution.
[ ] Design-build or contractor-side practice. The exposure inverts: read the flow-down terms and secure the completion and non-payment positions the structure weakens.
[ ] [Gate] Confirm the programme matches the practice's scale, because a large-practice programme at a two-person studio will lapse and a small-studio programme at a national firm leaves the exposure uncovered.

Phase 25. If you can only do four things

[ ] File both registrations at design development. One sweep, quarterly, and it is the difference between a claim and a grievance.
[ ] Put a present-tense assignment in the engagement template. Drawings belong to whoever drew them.
[ ] Write the licence scope into the owner agreement. An unwritten licence becomes an implied one on the defendant's terms.
[ ] Run the filtered comparison before sending anything. It is what the case turns on, and it frequently ends the matter internally.

Phase 26. The one-page project record

Project — [name], [client], [site]. Design dates: concept [date]; design development complete [date]; construction documents issued [date]; construction start [date]; completion [date]. Registrations: architectural work [application date, number, deposit description]; technical drawings [application date, number, deposit description]; filed at design development [yes/no]; within the 17 U.S.C. § 412 window [yes/no]; issued [dates]. Publication events: plan set to bidders [date]; planning submission [date]; marketing release [date]; first construction [date]; recipients recorded [yes/no]. Ownership: employees contributing [N]; contract staff and visualisers [N, assignments executed before work N of N]; sub-consultants [list, rights to prime confirmed yes/no]; joint venture [none / partner, joint work stated]. Owner agreement: licence scope [text]; reuse [permitted/not]; survives termination [yes/no]; payment a condition [yes/no]; completion by others [conditions]; indemnity for unsupervised use [present/absent]. Contractor: retains documents [yes/no]; shop drawing ownership [addressed]. Model: schedule attached [yes/no]; level of development [description]; reliance [scope]; native files delivered [yes/no]; object library carved out [confirmed]. Photography: photographer [name]; licence [term/territory/media]; expiry [date]; usages [list]; within scope [confirmed date]. Creation record: dated sketches [retained]; alternatives [N]; site analysis [retained]; programme [retained]; code constraints [documented]; access events [recorded]. Prototype: [n/a / instance N under licence ref]. Practice marks: [status]. Enforcement: matters [N]; basis [drawings / architectural work / contract]; filtered comparison run [date, outcome]; declined for lack of surviving expression [N]. Outstanding actions: [list].

The two fields that decide most matters. Whether the registration preceded the copying, and whether every contributor's rights were secured in writing before the work began.

Phase 27. Working with other advisers

[ ] Construction counsel. Agree who owns the licence, termination, completion, and model provisions before the negotiation starts, since both functions review the same document and frequently different clauses of it.
[ ] Professional indemnity insurers. Confirm whether copyright claims are covered and how model reliance interacts with the professional liability tower, before delivering models for fabrication.
[ ] Practice management. The filing calendar, engagement templates, and image register are administrative; counsel sets the rules and practice management runs them.
[ ] Photographers and agents. Negotiate at commissioning rather than accepting standard terms, and maintain the register.
[ ] Foreign associates. For the jurisdiction notes and for component design filings before disclosure.
[ ] Marketing. The practice's largest infringement exposure is its own marketing team's photograph use; the fix is the register and the audit rather than a policy.
[ ] Departing partners and staff. Portfolio permissions settled in the employment or partnership agreement, not at departure.

Phase 28. What this costs

[ ] A quarterly registration sweep takes a morning and covers every project reaching design development.
[ ] Two registrations per project cost modestly and are the difference between statutory remedies and none.
[ ] The engagement template change is a one-time drafting cost that eliminates a recurring class of defect.
[ ] Negotiating four clauses in the owner agreement takes an hour per project.
[ ] The model schedule is one page, reused.
[ ] The image register and its annual audit cost a morning a year and remove the practice's largest infringement exposure.
[ ] The creation record costs nothing beyond keeping what the project generates anyway.
[ ] A filtered comparison by an expert costs real money, which is why running it internally first is worth doing.
[ ] The asymmetry. Every item above is cheap at its moment and unrecoverable afterwards. Remedies lost to a late registration, ownership lost to an unsigned consultant, and scope lost to an implied licence are all permanent.

Phase 29. Explaining it to the client

[ ] State the three unwelcome facts once, plainly, in the first conversation.
[ ] The protection is thin. Zalewski v. Cicero Builder Dev filters out function, code, site, convention, and standard features before anything is compared.
[ ] Photographs cannot be stopped. 17 U.S.C. § 120 permits pictorial representations of a constructed building ordinarily visible from a public place, expressly.
[ ] The owner may alter or demolish. The same provision says so, and no drafting changes it.
[ ] Then redirect immediately to what is available: registration timing, the ownership chain, the licence in the owner agreement, the model schedule, the photography position, and the practice's own brand.
[ ] [Gate] Do not soften the three facts. A client told what they want to hear spends a year on a claim that was always narrow; one told the truth builds a portfolio.
[ ] For a claimant, state the filtered comparison result before the fee estimate.
[ ] For a respondent, produce the creation record before responding, because it frequently ends the matter in a week.

Phase 30. Diligence on a practice

[ ] Confirm registrations exist for the projects that matter, and that both works were filed.
[ ] Confirm the ownership chain for each significant project, including contract staff and sub-consultants.
[ ] Confirm owner agreements grant no more than the practice can support.
[ ] Confirm the object library was never transferred in a deliverables clause.
[ ] Confirm photography usage is within licence scope.
[ ] Confirm the practice name is registered to the trading entity.
[ ] Confirm any prototype licences have instance limits and stated adaptation ownership.
[ ] The recurring finding. A well-known portfolio of built work, no registrations, and a decade of contract staff who never signed anything.

Key Authorities at a Glance

| Authority | Proposition | |---|---| | 17 U.S.C. § 101 | Architectural work; work made for hire | | 17 U.S.C. § 102 | Subject matter | | 17 U.S.C. § 106 | Exclusive rights | | 17 U.S.C. § 106A | Moral rights in visual art | | 17 U.S.C. § 113 | Useful articles portrayed in works | | 17 U.S.C. § 120 | Pictorial representations; owner alterations | | 17 U.S.C. § 201 | Initial ownership | | 17 U.S.C. § 204 | Signed writing for transfers | | 17 U.S.C. § 302 | Duration | | 17 U.S.C. § 411 | Registration before suit | | 17 U.S.C. § 412 | Statutory damages and fees | | 17 U.S.C. § 501 | Infringement | | 35 U.S.C. § 171 | Design patents | | 35 U.S.C. § 173 | Design patent term | | 15 U.S.C. § 1125 | Trade dress; false designation | | Zalewski v. Cicero Builder Dev | Thin protection; filtering | | Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service | Originality | | Star Athletica v. Varsity Brands | Separability | | Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid | Employee versus contractor | | Fourth Estate Public Benefit v. Wall-Street.com | Registration means registration | | Rock and Roll Hall of Fame v. Gentile Productions | Building appearance as a mark | | Two Pesos v. Taco Cabana | Inherently distinctive trade dress | | TrafFix Devices v. Marketing Displays | Functionality | | Architectural Works Copyright Protection Act | The 1990 amendment | | Instruments of service in standard design contracts | Ownership and licence conventions | | Building information modelling protocols | Model ownership and reliance |

The five things people get wrong

One. They register only the drawings. 17 U.S.C. § 113 means that registration does not reach construction. Two works, two registrations, and a plaintiff with one has half a claim.

Two. They register after the copying appears. 17 U.S.C. § 412 conditions statutory damages and fees on registration before the infringement or within three months of publication — and in this field copying surfaces when construction starts, long after the drawings issued.

Three. They engage contract staff and visualisers without assignments. Architectural drawings are not among the enumerated work made for hire categories, 17 U.S.C. § 204 requires a signed writing, and without one the technician owns the plan set the practice is trying to enforce.

Four. They leave the licence unwritten. An architect who supplied drawings and was paid meets an implied licence defence built from the course of dealing, and it succeeds precisely because nothing stated the scope.

Five. They expect the protection to be thick. Zalewski v. Cicero Builder Dev filters out function, code, site constraints, market convention, and standard features before anything is compared, and what survives is the arbitrary choices alone.