[Ip-health] International Policy Network's "Independence and Guiding Principles"

[Julian]

Martin

I suppose their might be some value to the list in detailing the full
story here because it involves intellectual property and contracting-out
of services ...

In 2002, we (IPN) established a very small office in India and hired
someone to run it. The purpose of the office was basically to do back-end
work for us -- developing websites, list-serves, etc. as well as to build
a local network in India. The person we hired decided to establish himself
as a corporation, which we were in principle happy with. However, he chose
to call his corporation IPN Services Pty Ltd. which clearly was not
entirely desirable as there was some potential for confusion with and
misuse of our name. Anyhow, after a year we decided the whole thing was a
mistake and closed the office and let the indivdual go. The whole episode
cost us quite a bit (a bit more than =A310,000 as I recall), which for a
small organisation like IPN that is entirely reliant on charitable
contributions is no small amount. Our Trustees were none too pleased. I am
frankly rather embarassed about the whole episode but there you have it.

The lesson is: when contracting out services make sure you are very clear
about what you are asking for and that you have sufficient oversight to
ensure that you are able to control output. And of course specify in
advance that your contractor doesn't use a name that might be confused
with your own!

Julian


> Julian,
>
> No. I mean the one set up in India to which you referred. Are you
> saying that you have nothing to do with it?
>
> Martin.
>
> On 5/2/06, Julian <jmorris@policynetwork.net> wrote:
>> Martin
>>
>> It seems there is another IPN of which I was not aware. International
>> Policy Network has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with IPN Services
>> Pty Ltd, which appears to be a website design company in Australia:
>>
>> http://www.ezgoal.com/webdesignlist/webdesign/f.asp?fid=3D36018
>>
>> Thanks for letting us know about this other IPN -- I'm sure there are
>> many. Do you collect instances of the initials?
>>
>> Julian
>>
>>
>> > Julian: So you're saying you have nothing to do with IPN Services Pty
>> Ltd?
>> >
>> > Martin
>> >
>> >
>> > On 5/1/06, Julian <jmorris@policynetwork.net> wrote:
> [snip]
>> >> p.s. IPN Pty Ltd. was established, without our authority, by an
>> >> individual
>> >> in India. To my knowledge, it has now shut down. If you have other
>> >> information, please let me know and I will look into the matter
>> further.
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