Arrested Development: Legal Considerations For App Developers In The Middle East

App development is a flourishing industry across the Middle East. We are regularly approached by clients seeking legal advice on issues relating to app development. In some instances, the app is intended to streamline or digitise an existing process of a broader business. In other instances, the app is the business. In this article, we outline some basic legal considerations relevant to developing and rolling-out a new app.

Who owns it?

In some cases, the client company has in-house technical capabilities to develop its own app. In this scenario, it is important to make sure that the terms of the employment agreements of the individuals working on the coding provide that the employer owns the intellectual property rights in the developed app. On the point of ownership of an employee's work product, it should not be assumed that the law in the UAE, or elsewhere in the GCC, is the same as one might find in many other jurisdictions.