Escrow services technologies

Technology escrow is a tool designed to facilitate business transactions that require a neutral, third party to take custody of and potentially release certain technology, intellectual property or other proprietary information according to pre-negotiated technology escrow terms. Virtually any critical technology, formula, process or other intellectual property can be protected through a well-structured agreement via technology escrow.

The concept behind putting the technology in escrow is simple; the supplier puts the source code and documentation into escrow and if the supplier ceases operation or fails in some significant obligation the customer can retrieve the code, build a functional system, and maintain the technology for themselves.

In practice, though, it’s never so simple. Despite the agreement it’s often necesary to sue before getting the code. Even in the bast of circomstances, it can take months. Plus, despite requirements that complete documentation and all needed compilers and libraries be escrowed with the code, the material recieved is almost always incomplete. Despite all that, I know of projects where it’s been invaluable.

Technology escrow is a smart and effective component of a business continuity strategy that software licensees can use to protect their mission critical applications in an ever-changing environment.