ᐅ Building Plans

So, a quick update: I just noticed that in the plans it is written very small:

Draft copyright protected, reproduction or distribution to third parties only with the express permission of the creator.

I was just surprised because some people here in the forum also simply post the draft plans.

Well, you can write a lot – but a single-family house, as presented here in the forums, is unlikely to be protected by copyright.

At least, this was stated by the Higher Regional Court of Karlsruhe some time ago:

Higher Regional Court of Karlsruhe, 06/03/2013 – Case No.: 6 U72/12

GManuel schrieb:


I would now like to build with Company B, using the plans from Company A.

Is it allowed to pass on these plans?

Or rather, not the entire plan, just the scanned house without any additional data.

Hello,

The “planning” process—and its results, the planning documents—are legally considered a “work.” Therefore, they are subject to the building contract law under the German Civil Code, § 631 et seq. The contractor owes the creation (and delivery in an agreed form), and the client owes the payment.

This means that as long as Company A has not been paid for their work, the “work” still belongs to Company A. Company A’s intention not to allow their “work” to be used free of charge (here by Company B) is indicated by the notes later found on the plans. Whether such a note is legally enforceable is a separate legal question.

Protection under copyright law for intellectual creations—as correctly noted—requires personal intellectual creativity. This is a factual matter, which usually will be denied for standard floor plans used in everyday building projects.

Separate from this are the technical industrial property rights concerning intellectual property in intangible assets. Protection there generally requires registration in a public register, e.g., patents. However, even without registration, the rights to use can of course be legally transferred and exploited. For example, usage rights can be transferred together with the work (the house) or separately (e.g., only the planning), via licenses on transferable usage rights—either exclusively (to one user) or non-exclusively (to multiple users). Without a high level of creativity or registration, protection is limited.

Many general contractors or builders prepare initial plans during the offer phase deliberately—or reluctantly—free of charge, for example, as part of client acquisition. Legally, they would already have a claim to payment (if nothing else was agreed, possibly implied from the circumstances), according to § 612 of the German Civil Code. Architects usually expect payment as well, referring to the phases of the HOAI fee structure.

A gray area is clearly the further question posed by the original poster regarding the “scanned house without any additional data.” If Company A has not yet been paid, they will likely not approve of this. What they might do about it (or can do) is another factual issue. Company B would still need to transfer the plans into their own systems, create CAD drawings, and so on.