Protecting Your Mobile App IP: The Mini Missing Manual

Nondisclosure Agreements

You’ve already heard a lot about NDAs in this chapter, but you haven’t actually seen one—until now. Yes, the long wait is finally over. Well, okay, so NDAs aren’t all that exciting, but you’ll sure be glad you have one in place if a disgruntled former employee decides to post your trade secrets on her blog.

This section includes an example of a standard NDA as well as an NDA specifically for beta testers, which is a little more complicated. After each NDA you’ll find a detailed explanation of how to fill it out.

Standard NDAs

When you’re developing an app, you should get signed NDAs from people you disclose confidential information to, like investors, clients, customers, contractors, potential business partners, and licensees. If you use this standard agreement and someone steals (or “misappropriates”) your secrets, the agreement allows you to go to court and ask for certain legal remedies—ways to correct the problem, prevent further disclosure, and compensate you for financial losses resulting from the info not being secret anymore.

Note

You don’t need to get signed NDAs from people who work at your company, since all states have laws forbidding employees from disclosing confidential company info. However, some companies prefer not to rely solely on state laws, so they mention employees’ NDA obligations—like maintaining confidentiality and not disclosing secrets—in their employee handbooks. Alternatively some companies make employees sign employment agreements ...