Advising a Logistics or Supply Chain Technology Business: A Practitioner's Guide to Shipment Data, Platform Terms, Network Effects, and Customer Rights
By Casey Scott McKay ·
This guide is for counsel responsible for the intellectual property position of a freight, logistics, or supply chain technology business, and it is organised around the fact that almost nothing in the sector is defensible by patent. The defensible position is the network, and the network is built from contracts. The guide starts with the three-category data clause that should appear in every agreement, moves to the four platform terms that decide whether a data business exists at all, and then addresses integrations and API dependency, benchmarking products and their competition law exposure, rate files and employee mobility, the counterfeit interdiction programme, and contract logistics exit terms. It closes with the filing decision, which is smaller than clients expect.
IP and Technology > Information Technology | Guide | Published 7 June 2025 - Updated 24 February 2026 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us
Summary. This guide is for counsel responsible for the IP position of a freight, logistics, or supply chain technology business, and it is organised around the fact that almost nothing in the sector is defensible by patent. The defensible position is the network, and the network is built from contracts. It starts with the three-category data clause that should appear in every agreement, moves to the four platform terms that decide whether a data business exists at all, and then addresses integrations and API dependency, benchmarking products and their competition law exposure, rate files and employee mobility, counterfeit interdiction, and contract logistics exit terms. It closes with the filing decision, which is smaller than clients expect.
Keywords: logistics counsel · shipment data clause · platform permitted use · aggregation threshold · competitive restriction · exit and deletion · integration ownership · API dependency · benchmarking compliance · rate file secrecy · employee mobility · counterfeit programme · contract logistics exit · telematics evidence · marketplace circumvention
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