Overview
Review contracts for IP assignment clauses and flag gaps (scope, employee/contractor coverage).
When to use this skill
Use this skill when you are:
- Reviewing employment, contractor, or consulting templates and need to confirm that inventions and work product are properly assigned to the company.
- Auditing legacy agreements before an investment, acquisition, or fundraising round to identify missing or weak IP assignment language that could become a diligence issue.
- Localizing or updating templates across jurisdictions and want a quick check that assignment scope and coverage (employees vs contractors) remain clear.
- Performing a targeted IP risk review on a handful of key contributors whose agreements you suspect may be incomplete or outdated.
Typical users include in-house counsel, outside counsel, HR and people ops leads, and founders managing contractor-heavy teams.
Getting Started
Add the contract or policy to the workspace and activate the skill. Run the validator to check for assignment clause(s), scope (inventions, copyright, all IP), and employee/contractor coverage.
Tools
- validate_ip_assignment_presence — Checks for at least one assignment clause; scope (inventions, copyright, all IP); and employee/contractor coverage.
Example conversation
You: Review our contractor agreement in
contracts/consultant_agreement.mdfor IP assignment. We need assignment of all work product and inventions.Agent: Running validate_ip_assignment_presence.
Agent: OK: assignment clause present. Scope: inventions. Employee/contractor coverage mentioned. Consider adding explicit “all IP” or “work product” if you want full scope.
You: Add a work-for-hire and assignment clause for all work product.
Agent: Added a “Work product and assignment” section with work-for-hire and assignment of all deliverables to the client; re-validated — scope now includes copyright/work product.
Output excerpt
Example when no assignment is found:
============================================================
IP Assignment Clause Check
File: contracts/agreement.md
============================================================
No assignment clause detected — add at least one clause assigning inventions/copyright/work product to the company.
Scope: inventions
Employee/contractor coverage: Not clearly stated
Action: Add or strengthen assignment clause, scope, and coverage.