What you own
Everything we create for your project is assigned to you in writing, transferring on final payment:
- Schematics and PCB layout in native source formats, not only Gerbers
- Enclosure and mechanical CAD in native formats
- Firmware, cloud backend and mobile app source code, with build instructions
- Any model trained or fine-tuned on your data
- Bills of materials, test jigs, test procedures and factory-transfer documents
- The Sprint 0 report, from the moment it is paid for
You may use, modify, sell or hand any of it to another engineering firm or factory. We will sign whatever additional documents you need to register patents or designs in your name.
What we keep, and how you can use it
Like any studio, we bring tools and libraries we built before your project: build scripts, test harnesses, driver boilerplate. We list them by name in the statement of work, fixed at signature. Anything on that list stays ours, and you receive a perpetual, royalty-free licence to use it as part of your product. Anything not on the list is yours.
We never reuse your designs, code or confidential information for another client.
Source code: in your hands from week one
We work in a repository your company owns, on GitHub or GitLab, from the first week. Your engineers can read every commit as it lands. There is no moment at which the only copy of your product sits with us, so there is nothing to hold in escrow.
Cloud services are deployed into an account you control. At handover we remove our access; you do not need our permission to keep running.
Confidentiality: non-disclosure, non-use, non-circumvention
Before you send anything, we sign an agreement that covers all three risks, not only disclosure:
- Non-disclosure: we do not share your information with anyone outside the project team.
- Non-use: we do not use your information to build a competing product, for ourselves or anyone else.
- Non-circumvention: we do not approach the suppliers, factories or partners you introduce us to in order to go around you.
Our standard agreement is governed by Hong Kong law with arbitration at the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre. Awards are enforceable in mainland China, where our company and assets are, and in the more than 170 countries of the New York Convention. If you prefer PRC law with a Chinese-language version, or your own template, we will review it.
The people on your project
Everyone who works on your project has signed confidentiality and IP-assignment terms with Benchproof, so the rights we assign to you are rights we actually hold. We run one build at a time, so your project does not share a team's attention, or a desk, with a competitor's.
Open-source software
We give you a list of every open-source component in the firmware, backend and app, with its licence. We do not add copyleft licences such as GPL to your firmware without your written approval, so you are never obliged to publish your own code.
Your data
Test data, recordings and user data from your prototypes stay in your cloud account. We do not use them to train models for anyone else. For products launching in Europe, we set up EU data residency from the first build.
Manufacture wherever you choose
Designing in China does not tie you to building here. At the end of the build you receive a transfer package, the design files, firmware, test jigs and factory documentation, written to be handed to a third party. Assemble in Vietnam, Mexico, India or anywhere your tariff exposure is lowest.
If you would rather manufacture with a factory of your choosing and keep us involved only for firmware, we also offer a per-device firmware licence. Either way, the choice is yours.