Engaging Interns In Ireland, Part 2 – Interns And Intellectual Property

Part 1 of our Engaging Interns blog highlighted the absence of law clarifying the status of interns in Ireland. For IP-rich organisations, this may impact their ability to commercialise the fruits of their labour where interns may have created (jointly or alone) important intellectual property.

Where does this arise?

Organisations are often satisfied getting interns to sign simple non-disclosure / confidentiality agreements, as they can't foresee them creating any intellectual property during their internship. However, if an intern creates and/or develops any IP, a confidentiality agreement is unlikely to catch this and consequently the IP may not belong to the organisation.