Protecting Revit Families?

[Jim Merritt]

We are beginning to work on our Revit templates and families. We will have a very sophisticated setup with advanced families, schedules, etc.

Is there any way to lock or protect parts of a Revit file so consultants we are working with can't "take" our setup for other projects? We are not so concerned about Architects and Engineers we work with, but are concerned about our competitors getting our setup and removing the large advantage we will have over them. Is some sort of NDA agreement written by lawyers the only way? Thanks.

--Jim Merritt

[aaronrumple]

Nope. Once it is out of the office - it is out.
Numerous post on this subject if you do a search....

[Jim Merritt]

Sorry for the repeat post. I have searched and didn't have any luck with finding the same topic. I must be using the wrong search terms. An improved search engine would help also I think.

Are many firms requiring other firms they are working with to sign agreements when they give out their Revit files? Do people put clauses in their agreements specific to Revit files in general or Families in particular?

Even if a competitor did copies of your families, wouldn't it be pretty tough (if you even heard) to prosecute and prove they did so? I don't know much about the legal aspects of this. Does anyone have some pointers?

--Jim Merritt

[aaronrumple]

This is a start...
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.ph...ight=copyright

[patricks]

My position on the subject is still the same as when I posted in that linked thread.

Unless it's a family of something custom designed that you, the architect (or your firm) created, that is specific to your building design, then I don't see what the problem is with sharing families.

If you're creating a family that represents something that already exists, then let other people benefit from it by sharing it. At some point in time, you'll need something that someone else has made, also.

I seriously doubt that your office is going to be custom-creating ALL the content used by the users in your office. To me that would be a MASSIVE waste of time, energy, and resources.

[HawkeyNut]

I agree with 'generic content' not being copyrighted. Everyone can benefit from it. But I am also creating some very complex content for our firm that is more or less a part of the product we are selling. We invest time into creating this content and I am sure you can understand us not wanting to hand over the end result to our competitors...

[Alex Page]

My position on the subject is still the same as when I posted in that linked thread.

Unless it's a family of something custom designed that you, the architect (or your firm) created, that is specific to your building design, then I don't see what the problem is with sharing families.

If you're creating a family that represents something that already exists, then let other people benefit from it by sharing it. At some point in time, you'll need something that someone else has made, also.

I seriously doubt that your office is going to be custom-creating ALL the content used by the users in your office. To me that would be a MASSIVE waste of time, energy, and resources.

That may be a nice idea, but our firm have invested a lot of time heavily in creating Revit families starting about 5-6 years ago - our local competitors have now jumped onto the band-wagon but I believe that our families (content/ graphical look and feel) give us a huge competitive advantage over them (of course our advanced knowledge as well).
Creating our families cost us time (= money) and sure, I have downloaded other peoples families to use as a base/ work out how they did it/ etc etc for our own, but I can tell you, if I told my boss Im going to hand our families to our competetors, its probably the end of my Management role!

We are currently doing a joint project with a competitor, who are using the families out of the box, and we are very nervous about this topic

[aaronrumple]

...there is a way to hide a parameter. It will be available to the API, but not visible to the average user. It is about the only way to "sign" a family. Of course someone with knowledge of the API can zap the parameter out.

[patricks]

We are currently doing a joint project with a competitor, who are using the families out of the box, and we are very nervous about this topic

Well is there some kind of contract going with this other company? Maybe you could work something into the contract about how the custom content is the property of your company etc. etc. etc., which of course would be signed by both parties. If the other company is caught using them later then you should have grounds for legal action.

[Alex Page]

Yeah, I guess that is what we will do...
But what happens if the client asks for the model, which he/she has paid for and (maybe) legally owns...how do we stop he/she distributing the file?