CAD Document Use Policy & Ethics

[slayer913]

Have some questions that have come up within my team around the ethical and professional obligations in receiving, transmitting, and turning over CAD and other engineering documentation.

I'm Engineering Manager for a design/build contractor - we put together industrial process plants and systems, most times building the systems we design but sometimes performing design work only. In the course of this work, we handle existing customer drawings, third-party vendor drawings, and our own self-generated drawings.

This entire issue has come to light upon finding that some external parties are presenting our drawings and standard drawing symbols / style as their own work.

We are looking to put together a Document Use Policy, and these are the highlights I have started:
- When modifying third-party drawings, always include their title block to give credit and rev-cloud changes
- When modifying customer drawings, always include original title blocks to give credit and rev-cloud changes
- When modifications include our own design information and CAD symbols / styles, release only PDFs. (The property paid for is the end result drawing, not the raw CAD file)
- When modifications include no proprietary information of ours (we performed drafting only using the drawing's existing CAD standards, no design), release DWGs
- Add language to contracts that bind the reuse of released CAD works within governed boundaries (our "written consent" statement and logo right now are on the title blocks, but those can be deleted)
- When asked to reuse third-party drawings by a customer to produce a new design for them to sell to a new end-user, which the third-party is not aware of, turn this down. Redraw applicable elements from scratch, and release only PDF.
- When asked to convert a third-party PDF into a DWG and modify, turn this down.
- Discovery of our generated drawing styles and symbols being used by others as their own work should be treated as breach of propriety
- Discovery of our generated designs and systems being used by others as their own work should be treated as breach of propriety
- Release PDFs of all other work produced in the course of a project - schedules, inventories, etc - to include company logo


My questions are this: what type of CAD Document Release Policy do you have in place? Is it written from an ethical, legal, or other perspective? And what are the highlights covered that help mitigate the gray areas of credit, propriety, and use rights?

Another angle: where is the "free to use" line drawn between performing drafting work vs design, as in, is it ethical to modify others' drawings when drafting only, but unethical when reusing their information for a new design of your own?


Thank you in advance!

[cadtag]

I suppose my first question would be exactly what are you expecting to accomplish, and what is the over-riding number one priority? For the moment, I'll presume that it's protecting your organization. That said.....

- When modifying third-party drawings, always include their title block to give credit and rev-cloud changes
Ah -- nope. First of all, without written authorization you are violating the third-parties copyright, and hence liable to massive statutory damages for willful infringement. Secondly, by incorporating their designs, especially modified versions of their designs, you are assuming liability not only for any errors or omissions on your part, but also any issues on theirs. Once you incorporate their stuff into your job, you take on all the headaches. Morale: get written authorization and contractual limits on liability. giving credit may be a feel-good thing on your part, but has zero impact on your liabilities.

- When modifying customer drawings, always include original title blocks to give credit and rev-cloud changes
See above, though if they are your customer and have ownership of the design drawings, getting written permission should be easier. You're still liable for problems though once you issue them.

- When modifications include our own design information and CAD symbols / styles, release only PDFs. (The property paid for is the end result drawing, not the raw CAD file)
Depends on the contract . A PDF is an 'image' of a drawing, not the drawing. And I require all of my subs to deliver DWG files. A PDF is far less usable as a base than a DWG, and if I'm going to be doing additional work, then I definitely need a DWG. Deliver DWGs on CD-R, with Letter of Transmittal, & keep copies of both on file. Do not just email, or FTP, or 360. or Dropbox the files, and never ever use CD-RW media.

- When modifications include no proprietary information of ours (we performed drafting only using the drawing's existing CAD standards, no design), release DWGs
see above

- Add language to contracts that bind the reuse of released CAD works within governed boundaries (our "written consent" statement and logo right now are on the title blocks, but those can be deleted)
OK -- good, but remember - the drawings are also contract documents, and limitations on re-use shown there are as binding.

- When asked to reuse third-party drawings by a customer to produce a new design for them to sell to a new end-user, which the third-party is not aware of, turn this down. Redraw applicable elements from scratch, and release only PDF.

Find a new customer. Redrawing still keeps liability on you, and potentially opens you up to litigation by that third party, since you are recycling their design information. to quote your own statements, "(The property paid for is the end result drawing, not the raw CAD file)". Simply re-drafting a drawing does not make it an original work.

Caveat -- there are legitimate scenarios where successor engineers are specifically authorized by statute to re-use drawings. Consult competent legal counsel in your jurisdiction.

- When asked to convert a third-party PDF into a DWG and modify, turn this down.
OK

- Discovery of our generated drawing styles and symbols being used by others as their own work should be treated as breach of propriety
that's awfully petty. After all, your work is built on decades of other peoples and other organizations efforts - you are standing on the shoulders of giants after all. Your particular styles are not all that valuable to anyone else, and the symbols you use ought to be industry standards - if not you're increasing the probability of mis-communication during construction.

- Discovery of our generated designs and systems being used by others as their own work should be treated as breach of propriety
Did you patent the designs, systems, & ideas? Can you demonstrate in court actual financial harms? Are these designs and systems that could be independently developed?

- Release PDFs of all other work produced in the course of a project - schedules, inventories, etc - to include company logo
OK, and include a Letter of Transmittal

[slayer913]

Hi CADTAG - thanks for the response!

Appreciate the feedback. This is an attempt to navigate the gray area between "this is mine" and "this is what you paid for". Simply put, of course.

Primary goal, as I rethink the situation, is to protect the organization yes, as well as to protect the value of the work put in by our team. Built on the shoulder of giants as you say, yes, but are we totally without added value and as such cannot protect that which we bring to the table?

Couple questions, if you don't mind.



- When modifying third-party drawings, always include their title block to give credit and rev-cloud changes
Ah -- nope. First of all, without written authorization you are violating the third-parties copyright, and hence liable to massive statutory damages for willful infringement. Secondly, by incorporating their designs, especially modified versions of their designs, you are assuming liability not only for any errors or omissions on your part, but also any issues on theirs. Once you incorporate their stuff into your job, you take on all the headaches. Morale: get written authorization and contractual limits on liability. giving credit may be a feel-good thing on your part, but has zero impact on your liabilities.

On this item, I cannot think of an industry that at some point would 'not' be in a position to expand on an existing work, so would like your opinion on how this is handled in your or other industries. A simple example is adding a room to a floor plan. If a home owner gives you a CAD drawing of their house 10 years after it was built, and you use that file to add the new room, are you seeking written authorization and are you taking on liability for the rest of the house? This analogy carries over to our industry where we are adding to an existing system. The drawing of a piping system or structural platform can be modified to add new scope, thus the reason to give credit to the previous drawing owner, and liability is legally (contractually) constrained to that scope.



When asked to reuse third-party drawings by a customer to produce a new design for them to sell to a new end-user, which the third-party is not aware of, turn this down. Redraw applicable elements from scratch, and release only PDF.


Find a new customer. Redrawing still keeps liability on you, and potentially opens you up to litigation by that third party, since you are recycling their design information. to quote your own statements, "(The property paid for is the end result drawing, not the raw CAD file)". Simply re-drafting a drawing does not make it an original work.


Caveat -- there are legitimate scenarios where successor engineers are specifically authorized by statute to re-use drawings. Consult competent legal counsel in your jurisdiction.

Example: you're designing a water booster system, and the customer hands you a drawing of an old tank (drawn by a third party) to reuse. While this is reusing the drawing to duplicate a new tank, the engineering must be repeated to make sure the tank is sound and suitable, thus the liability is handled appropriately. Legal elements aside, would you reuse the tank drawing?



Discovery of our generated drawing styles and symbols being used by others as their own work should be treated as breach of propriety
that's awfully petty. After all, your work is built on decades of other peoples and other organizations efforts - you are standing on the shoulders of giants after all. Your particular styles are not all that valuable to anyone else, and the symbols you use ought to be industry standards - if not you're increasing the probability of mis-communication during construction.

Stated another way, if another company takes your CAD standards and uses them as their own CAD standards from there forward, having obtained them via a released CAD drawing, I would disagree that this is petty. What if an ex-employee started a drafting company with 10 years of CAD development standards and symbols taken from their former employer?

Thank you very much for your input,
Albert

[tedg]

I work at a major A/E company and we do this type of "cad sharing" all the time, but with written agreements, contracts and an understanding.

Let's say we are working on a government project and they supply us with an "existing conditions" cad file (which they would have received from another contractor per their contract). We are told to use it at our own risk and to be verified, and we can use the cad file(s) for that specific project. In this case, they are usually drawn to a specific government standard that we would be using anyway. And the same goes for us, as part of the contract, we would be providing cad files as part of the deliverables, which would be to the government's cad standard.

If we are doing work for a private client, and cad files are part of the deliverables (which is very rare), we would make them sign a waiver that it is for their own use only and not to be duplicated or used in any other way. We would usually strip the files of any standards or proprietary work anyway and would mostly be just backgrounds, but the waiver still applies.

If we receive cad files for the same reason, we would have signed a contract not to use proprietary work without written consent, and to use if for a particular project and not for anything else. In this case we would be using it for the information that applied to a project, such as equipment, locations, etc. We don't really use someone else's drawings for our own. With the exception of "existing conditions" backgrounds that have been verified as mentioned similar to the government project above.

[cadtag]

>> where we are adding to an existing system. The drawing of a piping system or structural platform can be modified to add new scope,

That scenario I would consider as 'Existing Conditions', and would simply redraw the setup based on what's there at the current time. there's very little reason to think that what was originally drawn in CAD by some one else back when was (a) drawn correctly to begin with and (b) actually built the way it was shown on the old drawings. If I'm adding to an existing system, (and much of what I work on is based on doing just that) then I'm basing my 'existing conditions & systems' on a survey of what's really there. I may refer to the old drawings as I work, but not incorporate their linework.

And contractor weasel words that state the Contractor is responsible for field verifying everything he encounters.

>>Example: you're designing a water booster system, and the customer hands you a drawing of an old tank (drawn by a third party) to reuse. While this is reusing the drawing to duplicate a new tank, the engineering must be repeated to make sure the tank is sound and suitable, thus the liability is handled appropriately. Legal elements aside, would you reuse the tank drawing?

No. Again, there's no reason to think that the old drawing accurately reflects what's really there, nor that the old drawing is correct. As well, statutory damages for willful copyright infringement are pretty steep -- and including the old titleblock is pretty damming evidence of willful infringement - that is it's proving that you knew the drawing belong to someone else, but copied it into your set anyway.

>>Stated another way, if another company takes your CAD standards and uses them as their own CAD standards from there forward, having obtained them via a released CAD drawing, I would disagree that this is petty. What if an ex-employee started a drafting company with 10 years of CAD development standards and symbols taken from their former employer?

CAD Standards and symbols are a way to communicate - with owners, subs, contractors, reviewers, agencies, partners, etc. They are not business secrets, nor are they what the client is paying you to do. Or at least _my_ clients don't. They are hiring us to create a finished, buildable design, not CAD symbols. The CAD standards and symbols _ought_ to be consistent between organizations and across industries - never thought of as proprietary. Why on earth would one think that expecting everyone out there to devise a unique wheel is progress? Wheels are round, so expect basic good ideas to be re-used. You do it, I do it, we all do it.

Rather than getting huffy that some dares to use layernames or symbols that look like yours, or even derive from yours, take it as a compliment that you developed a useful, understandable system that other people in the industry feel is worthwhile emulating. Imitation is a pretty sincere form of flattery.

On the other hand, if they are re-using your complete copyrighted designs, you may have a legitimate beef. The issue there will be whether you can demonstrate financial harm and that they are wholesale reproducing your designs as their own.

[dgorsman]

Field confirm as much as possible, certainly. One of our clients had an ongoing verification procedure because they found sites that had been completely demolished but the associated drawings still existed in the EDMS. Nobody had spent the time to officially obsolete them.

Re-use of set-up, drawings, etc. is a fuzzy area. Difficult to punish legally but certainly bad business ethics to take someone else's intellectual property without permission. Not necessarily being "huffy" about it, but spreading the word among others in the industry (aka blackballing or blacklisting) about said people is something that is done. And there is a legitimate concern here - if the person treats intellectual property in such a cavalier manner, then at the very least it raises the question of what else they are doing which could drag others into a future legal quagmire.

[jaberwok]

CAD Standards and symbols are a way to communicate - with owners, subs, contractors, reviewers, agencies, partners, etc. They are not business secrets, nor are they what the client is paying you to do. Or at least _my_ clients don't. They are hiring us to create a finished, buildable design, not CAD symbols. The CAD standards and symbols _ought_ to be consistent between organizations and across industries - never thought of as proprietary. Why on earth would one think that expecting everyone out there to devise a unique wheel is progress? Wheels are round, so expect basic good ideas to be re-used. You do it, I do it, we all do it.


+1.
Also, they should be complying with over-riding standards - ANSI, ISO, whatever - anyway.

[slayer913]

Hi Everyone -

Thanks again for all the input.

Wanted to post an update, after reviewing with legal and other professional resources.

Our bottom line findings are that drawings and documents are copyrighted works, protected under intellectual property and common-law copyright law. We can reasonable expect three things moving forward:

- We can and will only modify customer's documents and show their title block to give credit as long as they authorize us to do so, confirm that they have the right to authorize us, and indemnify us from any damages related to their misrepresentation of such authorization.
- Our documents are automatically copyrighted once they are affixed with a date, and we maintain such copyright ownership over documents even after they are paid for and released to others. Through this copyright, we can require and restrict others to notify us before release, reuse, or modifying our works.
- We are able to enforce copyright protection for any violations from the largest design package down to the smallest identifiable detail (such as a single symbol), at our discretion. This is mostly about protecting competitive exposure (giving away free info that might later be used for others to get projects against us), and not nit-picking use of our work.

Hope this helps others in the future.

Thanks,
Albert