> If you work in the software industry today, IP protection is part of what keeps you paid, I work in a company that does assessments for other companies. I wr

> If you work in the software industry today, IP protection is part of what keeps you paid, I work in a company that does assessments for other companies. I write in-house software to perform those assessments. They give us the data and we give them reports. There's no "IP" [sic] involved in any of this. There are service contracts and so forth, but my salary would come just as well if our customers had our source code (not that any of them would know what to do with it). Our company provides a service in the form of trained professionals who know how to perform the assessment aided by the software written by people like me who do it. I guess maybe our brand name is important, so perhaps trademarks help us, but that's a completely separate matter from what you are blanket calling "IP". We do not rely on patents (design or not) or copyright to get our pay.