The Great Resignation: How to Prevent Your CAD Files From Leaking?

As the covid-19 pandemic is likely to fade away in 2022, another challenge picks up momentum — The Great Resignation. Millions of people in the US alone leave their jobs for various reasons: some look for a more secure workplace, others don’t want to come back to the office after casually working at home.

The Big Quit takes over Europe as well. A recent study (1,000 employees and 500 HR decision-makers in the Netherlands) done by a German-based company, Personio, found that 46% of workers plan to quit their jobs in the next 6 to 12 months.

The situation is unlikely to change, as many experts, such as Professor Dr. Isabell Welpe at the Technical University of Munich, thinks that the pandemic has forever changed the way we work:

“Technology development usually moves in waves, and we will soon witness the dawn of the decentralized economy that enables a blockchain-based way of makers and creators directly interacting with customers and users without the need to go through platform companies and intermediating firms. DAOs [decentralized autonomous organizations] will be the next stage for organizations in this decentralized economy.”

A losing CAD files catastrophe

The trend shows that the number of freelance jobs will grow, with more people working for several employers at once. Naturally, this makes the problem of IP ownership even more acute.

Recent research reveals that the technology sector faces the highest resignation rates. Losing productive employees is bad enough, but losing CAD files along with them is catastrophic to any design-oriented business.

These businesses need to figure out two things to stay afloat: firstly, why employees quit their jobs, and, secondly, what they take with them when leaving.

We stated before that data leaks mostly happen because of people making mistakes. But it’s not always the case. Some may think that bringing a CAD file with your newest design directly to competitors would win them a better position.

It is unlikely that your former employees will hire a group of professional hackers to steal your secrets. But this is not even necessary because something as trivial as an email message, cloud storage, or USB drives would do just fine.

Protect your intellectual property the right way

Although you may request the leaving employees to hand back all company-issued devices, it’s not a cure-all solution, especially if CAD files have already been leaked.

Increasing legal and digital security would be an obvious move. However, it’s hardly possible to patent every piece and bit of a design, not to mention that it won’t work if a former employee is capable of changing it.

This would make it very hard to prove that you are the original owner of the IP. What’s more, filing a lawsuit and going through all the processes of proving ownership in court is extremely long and expensive.

While you are preoccupied with this legal quest, other people are making the product based on your CAD files, getting all the benefits from it.

Meet BORIS

Finding the right people that would never do such a thing falls on your shoulders, whereas CADChain has something to share regarding IP protection.

Meet BORIS, an exclusive Autodesk plugin. When it comes to protecting your CAD data and tracking down its potential misuse, BORIS is your guy.

It works inside the Autodesk Inventor software and ensures easy ownership protection in the familiar working environment.

Proof of ownership and creatorship

The plugin creates a geometric twin of CAD files. Then, it uses cryptography to hash it and link the data to the IP owner on our blockchain protocol.

All further operations are carried out with the geometric twin of your file, signed by your digital fingerprint. This proves it to be your asset and makes you the first in the line of ownership. In the meantime, the file itself is kept securely in the storage of your choosing.

The solution is reinforced by Ricardian smart contracts, self-executing agreements that are both man and machine-readable. So if it comes to a dispute, you will be able to prove your ownership over CAD files.

Legal protection of CAD data

Legal component combined with technical protection of CAD data is a unique development of CADChain.

A legal part of BORIS handles licensing and any restrictions the owner wants to enforce, and will ensure an enforceable contract for every shared CAD file and will protect the file owner even against malicious users.

Tracking every access and change made

The tracking feature is especially important, as your CAD file’s geometric twin is on the blockchain, so you can track every entry or change made.

It also increases an employee’s legal responsibility awareness by recording all access events.

Moreover, when a person is aware that the employer has a way to track all actions with a CAD file and has the means to prove ownership over it, the chances that the file gets stolen or leaked are significantly reduced.

Protecting CAD files with The Great Resignation going on is a complex process. Freelancers and design firms looking to properly adapt to these job market conditions shouldn’t tackle this process alone. Do consider BORIS as your new employee, and we can give you a tip on where to find him.

Join free beta testing here

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