Legal Question in Intellectual Property in California

Re: Drawing Design Ownership

In terms of copyright law, the "default" is that the author retains copyright ownership unless there is a writing to contrary. So, if the contract does not specify who owns the drawing, it probably belongs to the company that created it.

Without reviewing your particular contract and the way it is worded, it is difficult to say whether the fire protection company is within its rights to restrict your use of the work you paid for. Ordinarily, lawyers who deal in intellectual property will put a "work-for-hire" statement in contracts such as yours, or language that gives you the absolute right to use the work for the purposes you need.

In any case, the company should be willing to give you written permission to copy the drawing and distribute it for bidding purposes (and at no additional charge to you). Of course, their reason for NOT doing so would be so they get the job without any competing bids.

Re: Drawing Design Ownership

I'm not sure about fire protection design work, but it has come to my attention that architects retain copyright over their plans. The concern is liability if another builder does the work and either makes modifications or doesn't follow the plan properly and something then goes wrong.

As to whether they have the right to do this or not, the first place I would look is the contract itself; it may say that plans remain the property of the firm that produced them.

Such a fine-print reservation of rights might be assailable in court -- I don't know -- but if it is a large firm there's a good chance the provision has weathered previous challenges.