Legal services built for software companies
We help software companies overcome the complex legal issues specific to software development, licensing, and commercialization.
You need a software lawyer to be competitive
Law is nuanced, especially for software companies with legal needs to address across numerous touch points with vendors and third parties—and the entire development process (including updates).
Having a software or SaaS lawyer who understands your business’ specific legal intricacies means having someone on your side who can use the law to better protect and monetize your business and trade secrets and ensure you’re well-prepared for industry shifts.
At SSL, we help ensure your ideas are protected, your licenses thorough, and your liabilities minimal so you can safely grow your business.
Some of the ways we help
We’ve legally advised SaaS providers, game developers, B2B and B2C app store offerings, fintech companies, defense contractors, cyber security solutions, professional service organizations, custom software developers, and more.
Our software legal services include but aren’t limited to:
- Contract drafting and negotiation
- License agreements for third parties
- Terms and conditions for websites and app stores
- Privacy policies for compliance (including CCPA and GDPR)
- Referral agreements or outside sales engagements
- Master service agreements
- Sales and vendor contracts
- Trade secrets to protect your software’s development
- Copyright to protect your source code
- Patents to protect novel UI features, operating systems, algorithms, functions, and more
When you use others’ software, we’ll ensure your license doesn’t restrict your business or enable licensors to significantly affect your product.
When you license your software, we’ll ensure you have ownership protections, requisite control, and the ability to terminate the license if needed.
We’re intimately familiar with the liabilities that can arise during the development and use of your software, from not removing bugs before a release to insufficient privacy policies, so we can advise you on how to reduce them.
Software for hire contracts must be carefully written and structured to guarantee that you get full ownership of the work created for you and that your contractor can’t recreate the product for another client.
If you own or manage a SaaS company, your needs go beyond traditional software licensing because it falls to you to handle data storage, security, updates, maintenance, and more. We can help you navigate the risk and run your operations smoothly, securely, and profitably.
- SaaS business model development
- SaaS developer agreements
- SaaS agreements
- Reseller and white-label SaaS solutions
- Privacy agreements
- Subscription management
- Subscription enforcement when users exceed use or share logins
Whether you rely on open-source software or have an open-source product you offer a SaaS subscription for, open-source code has legal implications that we help you navigate strategically—from limited strategies for licensing and protecting your intellectual property to how a license affects acquisition to dual licensing and license compliance.
- Open-source licensing models and agreements
- License compliance (Apache, MIT, GPL, etc.)
- Open-source license compatibility
- Proprietary code protection
- Policies for contributing to open-source projects
- Contributor agreements
- Copyright licensing for open-source developers
- Data protection compliance
- Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
- Dual licensing and subscription terms
We have worked with numerous Salesforce AppExchange providers to help them navigate the unique challenges of licensing software within the Salesforce ecosphere. As an app vendor, you have no control over things like uptime, data protection, or user rights, and it’s very different functionally and legally from being hosted in AWS or Azure.
- Negotiated with a “Fortune 10” company to license our client’s software.
- Negotiated a software license agreement for an international retailer to utilize our client’s software for public-facing purposes.
Frequently asked questions
What unique legal challenges do software companies have?
Not only do software companies have unique intellectual property to protect (like source codes and algorithms) as well as unique liabilities (like service outages), but they must maintain protection and compliance throughout ongoing updates, patches, and feature releases.
What are the potential consequences of not seeking advice from a software attorney?
Without nuanced advice from a software or SaaS attorney, there’s an increased risk of intellectual property theft, non-compliance, and poorly written contracts that could lead to disputes. Such consequences may hurt your reputation and result in costly fines and legal battles.
What are the legal risks of using third-party APIs?
Third-party APIs or platform integrations can expose a company to data breaches, intellectual property infringement, and contract violations. We can help you mitigate these risks by reviewing and negotiating your API terms of service, ensuring proper data security, and establishing clear and thorough agreements.
Can you advise on international expansion for software companies?
Absolutely, from market entry strategies to compliance with local laws.
Do you serve PaaS, IaaS, and DBaaS companies?
Yes! We offer experienced legal counsel for all kinds of software businesses. If you sell or run on software, we can help.
Let’s protect your business. Schedule a consultation to get started.
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What to expect:
- Use the form to schedule a consultation.
- You’ll talk with a real attorney about your business and needs and how we can help. Then, you’ll get an initial estimate.
- If you like what you hear, you’ll get an engagement letter and pay the deposit.
- We’ll get started protecting your business.