SPI works on the core offerings of several customers and thereby appreciates the importance of intellectual property protection. SPI has a contract with all its customers for a comprehensive non-disclosure and mutual protection of intellectual property rights. The agreement would typically contain clauses pertaining to :

• Definition of Confidential Information
• Restrictions on use
• Breach and consequences thereupon
• Other miscellaneous provisions like ownership, applicability, jurisdiction etc

This contract is usually entered into during the signing of the service agreement between the two companies.

NON DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT
Every employee working for SPI and assigned to a project signs a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) and this is submitted to the client before he/she starts off project related work.  Usually the NDA is in the format of the client organization.

All employees of SPI sign a comprehensive non-disclosure agreement with SPI.  This covers a range of areas, including :

• Confidentiality of information : This is to ensure that client specific information gained during the course of employment or from executing a customer’s contract is not divulged
• Ownership of developed intellectual property : This ensures that any developments done on the job are the ownership of the company or contract that the employee is working on.

In addition to the above other steps taken to ensure safeguard the intellectual property rights of its customers are, following steps are taken to maintain a high level of security :

• Only employees are allowed generalized access into the SPI campus. Each employee has a separate identity card.  Visitors are allowed in only when identified by SPI personnel, and are issued special badges.
• Access to special zones in SPI (like the communication hubs, data centres) is restricted.  These zones are either physically manned or/and have special access doors. The regular identity cards are reprogrammed to include access via these special doors for the specific personnel.
• User identification with password is required for using a desktop computer, and all network resources.   A desktop computer is assigned to every employee, and sharing is not encouraged.  A central department administers the software installed on each desktop and on the network.  Periodic audits of user accounts are carried out.
• All of SPI’s knowledge base for a project is stored electronically in spiProject.com access to which is restricted to individuals that are associated with that project.  The access rights are audited on a periodic basis to ensure maximum security of knowledge.
• All servers are protected by setting up differing levels of users and password protection.
• For IP sensitive customers operating dedicated offshore centres, SPI can even logically separate the network into a separate subnet.  The subnets can be separated form the rest of SPI using firewalls.
• External connectivity from SPI networks to customer networks is through a firewall.   A TCP/IP connection between the customer and SPI allows access to specific services to only a select set of internal users (project members).  The firewall is monitored on a daily basis for usage.
• SPI can even provide for physical separation of dedicated offshore teams with special access entry doors.  Only personnel from the project group can enter these areas.

A significant measure of the confidence customers have in the intellectual property protection at SPI, is the fact that most large customers are invited to include an audit of the security process at SPI for their projects and we have been able to achieve conformance always.

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