You are competitively bidding a complicated new house job.
You have gone over the thing with a fine toothed comb. You found errors and discrepancies everywhere, and made corrections and notes.
All your requests for quotation to suppliers are done on sheets evidencing your letterhead, and all are marked “copyright 2004, 2005, Joe Blow Builders, Inc.”
You do that because in many ways, your information is proprietary, in that you have rolled all your correction and clarification information into the quote request detail.
You are awarded the job, and your client, when you ask him for additional drawing sets, says, “Ask your local competitor, who knows he lost the job to you, to give you the set he has. He hasn’t returned them to me as I asked.”
Local guy says, “OK, fine, drop by, pick ’em up, I’ll leave ’em leaning up against my office door.”
You do that, and the drawing set has rolled up with it, all the guy’s quotes he got from suppliers.
You riffle through the papers, and lo and behold, you find that your “trusted” suppliers used all your RFQs, verbatim, to quote the competitor. There is your letterhead, your copyright notice, on page after page, staring right back at you.
When I was in the commercial window business, we were often quoting big GCs that were competitively bidding the same job. Big window packages, a million and up.
Our policy was to never, never, use one GCs RFQ package, which often differed from the way another GC competitor was RFQing the job, and just “xerox” the quote. Quite often a GCs estimator picks up on lots of things, corrects architects errors, etc., and does the same things as I was doing in my RFQs.
I guess in residential, though, these lumberyard guys are just snakes.
Replies
Have your lawyer send the supplier a "polite" reminder re the copyright laws.
"snakes"?
Or just lazy?
"A hard head makes for a sore a$$."
What is involved in copyrighting an RFQ? I have never heard of anyone doing this and would pity anyone who used our information on which to make a bid but I can think of circumstances that might justify it.
I use two statements on RFQs, and this one goes on them all:
"This document, including any attachments, contains confidential information intended for a specific individual, and is protected by law. Its purpose is to convey the details of a request for quotation. Any unauthorized disclosure, copying, or distribution of this document, except for the purpose of replying to its author, is strictly prohibited."
I convey a lot of drawings and details I produce myself, either by hand or using CAD, to accompany my RFQs. Often, using MS Excel, I embed them right in the spreadsheets.
Often the drawings I produce contain right on them, summary schedules of quantities and types.
An example is all of the cut and fabricated granite for this job.
I have never found an architect's door, window, or hardware schedule to be correct, or to provide enough detail for an RFQ. I therefore do my own.
I do a lot of truss detail drawing work, and my specialized truss needs, not shown on the architect's and engineer's drawings, are sent with drawings at truss RFQ time.
If I have re-engineered the foundation because the archy's drawings didn't get it right, those drawings become the body of my RFQ.
It is all these things, that I consider my intellectual "product," that I slap the copyright notice on.
If it's just a framing list, it might look simple, but I put desk time into it, and I don't want it going to someone that might be competing.
Instead of submitting a proposal with all the detail, why not create a bid sheet that just summarizes the bid, and if you get the job you can provide all the backup.
I'm sorry, I thought you wanted it done the right way.
I did that. My "proposal" was a simple piece that in effect, said "per the plans and what we saw when touring the prototype house in Vermont." A fixed lump-sum price was given.
Clients say, "That's do-able. Looks fine. Send us your contract."
That's where I screwed up. I send them the contract, which includes seven pages of scope and spec detail, all stuff not defined explicitely on the drawings, some of it deviating from what is shown on them, per discussion and agreement.
That's the document that almost strung me up. Clients copied all the detail out of it verbatim, in providing spec info to other builders. I am looking at my own stuff, word for word, in this other builder's bid file he unwittingly gave to me.
I'm never doing that again. It's the "Mike Smith way" for me from now on. I've gotten religion.
I think the key is to distribute less information, and probably to spend less time up front generating it in the first place. Re-engineering the foundation, detailing the trusses, detailing the door and window schedule, etc... can that time be justified as part of a speculative bidding process? It you make the effort to 'upgrade' the plans as stated, you're not bidding competitively, because if your competitors don't do the same, the numbers they throw at the client will be lower and may get attention first. Your proposal may be the best one, and some clients will know that right away by seeing how much you've vetted the plans, but others will just be looking for the lower number. Almost all of the bidding I've done myself or been a part of has consisted of sending out stock copies of the drawings that came in. Yes, we know there are problems with them, but we allow for that. If the window schedule is inadequate, we add a contingency to the window number from the supplier, usually after calling and asking them some general questions about what the upgrades will cost.
You will never be able to control the behavior of other people, except maybe your kids when they are very young. Your suppliers will see your specs and will reuse them if they're quoting the same job to two contractors. After you lecture them and send them the lawyer letter they'll just do it verbally, by calling your competitor and letting them know that the quote includes the stuff you picked out because it's what's necessary. If you put the info out there, it will get used.
I recognize that your process is an effort to know the exact costs of the job in advance, and that's a desirable thing, but I think most contractors, for a couple of reasons, will use their own judgement when evaluating quotes, and add contingencies as needed, rather than try to get a perfect number from everyone.
I have rarely done drawings, but I do make a detailed scope of work - I need to, to price the project properly. Needless to say, I have been burned too many times as you were. Occassionally I have seen my notes at another GC's package. Originally I was trying to impress the HO's with my thoroughness and complete understanding of the project. What an idiot!Now, as you, I simply submit a $ per Trade or Phase of the project. When the time comes for further negotiation/ discussion of the work I bring copies of the detailed scope of work, complete with tables, ommissions and alternates. Prospective clients are so pleased to see this. At the end of the meeting I collect the copies (along with any notes they wrote on them HA!) and explain that they are my proprietary papers and I own them. If the client is willing to give me an unrefundable deposite towards the job - 10% - then I would be happy to leave them with the client. Sometimes they even have the audacity to ask me to wait a moment so they can copy down a few details. That's when I grab the papers and comment that they misunderstood what I stated clearly and respectfully. Weeds out the tire kickers and players real fast.One last thing: Someone else already commented on this. Bid on specs provided only. That keeps the playing field level. If there are any errors, state that pricing is based on info provided by client/ arch but is contingent on further spec review and agreement with arch. Arch must sign off on all changes. This keeps channel of communication open and honest. If anyone is offended by this review they are incompentent at working within a group and sharing responsibility, will expect you to cover their butt without acknowledgement or financial credit and blame you when you don't catch their error. They are too expensive to work FOR.F
To copyright something you just need to put "(C) 2005 Your Name" on it somewhere. Of course, it should be your original work, not copied from somewhere else, and it needs to meet a rather weak criterion for being "non-trivial". (Pretty much anything more complex than a few words meets this.) Also, you can copyright a "creative work", but not data. Eg, the numbers in a table of load calcs can't be copyrighted, but the arrangement of the table can.Finally, if you work for someone else there are rules as to whether it's "work done for hire" and therefore your employer's property vs yours. The rules are fairly complex here, but generally your work is your work unless your employer explicitly prespecifies otherwise.
Anything that you right is copyrighted, by definition.However, unless it is registered you are very limited in what you can collect as damages and it is much harder.I think that it cost $35 to register.Not really the way to go for business papers.Much better would be mark them Prioritory with something like;"This inforatiom prepared by Gene Davis is to only be used for the purpose of preparing quotes to Gene Davis. It is not to be disclosed to any other party unless needed to prepare those quotes".That is not good wording, but you get the idea.
Yeah, the best protection is to mark them BOTH copyrighted and proprietary, and to get the person you give them to to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Of course, that much legalese may scare away some customers/vendors.
It is time to get a new supplier.
It is time to get a new supplier. And be sure to politely inform the owner why you are changing.
I'm sorry, I thought you wanted it done the right way.
Our first larger commerical job started out similar. The architec asked us to bid the "millwork" on the job- a complicated new age place. Well the millwork included everything from the steel railings to plexiglass and concrete, plus woodwork.
The deadline for bids was a week, and we busted butt, calling suppliers, getting material quotes, and correcting many mistakes. We entered our bid morning of deadline.
No word for a few weeks.
Then another cabinet shops sends us over some drawings for us to price for some steelwork. Another shop calls and faxes over drawings for some concrete. Can ya guess who's letterhead was covered with an enlarged copy of the GC's letterhead? Apparently he didn't like our bid, but he sure enough liked our shop drawings, and was fishing them around for a lower price, weeks after bids were closed. Quick learning curve for us.
We went directly to the GC and asked whats up. When then started the job the next week.
Since you got the job, you have not lost anything, so you may not have a case for "being made whole" but i would definitely take all this to a lawyer to have him write an educational letter, informing them that the next time it happens it will be very expensive for them. I would then hand carry that letter to the owner of the yard and sit down for a pow-wow, explaing what the word "trust" means to you and how they have damaged a trusting relationship. That way, they get the legal and the moral sides of this presented.
If there were no positive reaction, i wopuld never again darken their doors.
The main reason i would go this far in trying to make things work is that i know that you-like myself live and work in a more or less closed environment with feser competitive chopics, and we have to work with what we have to work with.
Welcome to the
Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
Gene,
Pretty unethical.
You seem to think that copyrighting a takeoff list (or whever) requires it to be treated as confidential information. My understanding is that copyright means that it can't be reproduced without the permission of the copyright holder. Lots of luck enforcing that.
I think the more direct way to keep the information confidential is to require any party to whom you provide a copy to sign a confidentialty agreement. Then when your info gets around, to your competative disadvantage, you have a breach of contract (agreement to hold the info confidential).
All this is no substitute for integrity. And your sup[pliers ain't got it.
Cliff
Could not the owner have given all those papers to the other GC to base his bids on ?
Right along with that set of plans the owner gave the other GC...
The person you offend today, may have been your best friend tomorrow
"Could not the owner have given all those papers to the other GC to base his bids on ?
Right along with that set of plans the owner gave the other GC..."
I was going to respond if no one said that . I think Genes customer is the SLUT, or how else would this have happened? But, were not talking about them , cause they still got their money dont they?
Its a dog eat dog world.
Tim Mooney
Gene
I used to quote jobs and provide drawings and specifications.
Found that they were being given to my competiters to quote on.
Lost a big job that I wrote up, but I didn't provide the proper engineering in the drawings (on purpose.)
Competiter bid job, and did it wrong because they followed my incorrect engineering.
A year later, they were still "fixing" it and charging the client for it.
I laughed every time I heard about it.
Jeff