How can architects protect their digital assets and models better?

Client contracts and BIM execution plans may give nods to the safeguarding of intellectual property (IP), but while industry working groups are trying to catch up with the fast-moving realities of collaborative environments, architects are sometimes left to ponder how to address the sensitive balance of sharing models and model data while ensuring they protect their valuable digital assets.

Is there any official guidance out there that covers this topic?

The standard that sits behind BIM execution plans, ISO 19650, is focused on getting the right people to work on the right information at the right time, and to facilitate effective data sharing. Getting the balance right between data sharing and protecting your data assets becomes a challenge.

This balance of openness against protection is now being tested by the “golden thread” requirement for higher-risk buildings (HRBs), but this is not just a consideration reserved for HRBs. Shared data has to be capable of demonstrating to the regulator how designers arrived at their design decisions without sharing IP with everyone.

“BIM Models can take months and months to produce and then are shared in the cloud with a simple click of a mouse,” says Ana Matic, director of digital development at Scott Brownrigg, one of the UK’s larger practices that has highlighted the need to protect digital assets while promoting data continuity on projects.

“Once your created assets become part of a design, they remain in the ownership of the company that created them, but this is often not clear to people, including clients as well as other team members,” she says.

Most of the time, improper use of someone’s IP is not malicious, she suggests. Sharing data is more likely to be completely benign, but the person sharing the BIM model does not understand that in sharing the assets they are giving away someone’s IP.

Scott Brownrigg will generally share only controlled copies of files, rather than the originated files that were produced using generative design BIM software.

These files are still three-dimensional and have information embedded in them, but they do not contain the building blocks of the files, the parametric elements for instance, behind their generation. These are stripped out. It’s analogous to a maths’ test, where you only provide the answers and keep your working out secret.

But for collaborative design work, particularly at stages 3 and 4, to allow other design team members such as engineers and M&E consultants to coordinate work the originated files do have to be shared and these expensively and carefully-generated digital assets are then out there.

What happens in the procurement stage?

There will be team members that don’t understand which bits of a project are owned by which parties, says Ana. This becomes more of a problem at the procurement stage when project managers and contractors become involved. People tend to think it is simply more efficient to share as much information as possible, both for the current project and future projects.

There is some useful guidance in ISO 19650-2 on how shared information should be used, Ana explains, but a project’s BIM execution plan is not considered to be a contractual document and for the purposes of IP the standard effectively refers everyone back to the original contract, which may not be specific enough.

“It’s beholden on us as authors to put protections in place, but the digital tools just don’t give us that at the moment. We can’t brand a model to stop someone else using it,” adds Helen Taylor, Scott Brownrigg’s Director of Practice.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that projects may not follow a simple linear path from its design originators to the delivery of the final project. Many projects will have development phases, while others may pass completely from one designer to another, with contractual protection of elements of IP at risk of getting lost in the mix.

“We can’t always rely on our original contract being the one that endures throughout the life of the project,” Helen continues.

Read more about what architects need to know about copyright when taking on new projects

What could happen in an ideal world?

In an ideal world, digital assets could be given some sort of proof-of-ownership watermark, or a tamper-proof mechanism. But for the present, it remains relatively easy for a malicious or inexperienced actor to strip out a file’s metadata and so remove its history and ownership.

The profession might see better provision for digital IP in future editions of standard contracts, additional guidance on sharing and copyright in ISO 19650-2, and possibly new codes of professional conduct covering digital collaborative working, but all these are some way off.

In the meantime, Helen says Scott Brownrigg has started to look more forensically at the agreements it signs for each project with regard to IP, and is looking more carefully at how it advises other consultants within the ‘safe environment’ – where collaborating consultants are all party to contractual relationships with the client and by extension with each other – where the limits to sharing are and where the sharing must stop.

Scott Brownrigg has also been looking at its disclaimers: regulatory statements regarding ownership and how you are permitted to work with a file – they pop up on a splash screen before you open up a digital asset. "These things have existed for a while, but we are starting to see better disclaimers on deliverables produced from models, so we are working on tightening up and improving ours," Ana say.

Because the BIM execution plan is there to facilitate sharing of information, and not to impose contractual limits on it, Ana suggests that one way forward might be for partnering consultants to agree in writing not to share an originator’s work outside of the safe environment without their agreement, and to get an acknowledgement for this. 

Thanks to Ana Matic, director of digital development, and Helen Taylor, director of practice, at Scott Brownrigg.

This is a professional feature edited by the RIBA Practice team.

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