A customer brings some drawings done by Company B to Company A, seeking additional work. Company A recognizes some blocks that are unique to their custom routines in the drawing done by their competitor and realize that their custom software has been stolen.

Company A sues Company B for stealing and using their custom software. Company B asks the employee who brought the software over...he claims the custom routines are like any software anybody could download off the internet and are in the public domain.

I think most of us would agree that it has been industry standard for drafters to take their favorite lisp routines, blocks, and titleblocks with them when they change companies. However, if they or a co- worker created that material during work hours, a company can certainly argue that the material belongs to the company and employees have no right to use it beyond the scope of their employ within that company.

When I write a custom routine for a company, we discuss whether the code belongs to the company or to me. Some companies want to own the code and want some assurances that I will not re-use the code for any other customer. Usually, I have no problem with that because the solutions are so unique to that specific company, it is not even an issue. However, even in those cases I will charge more. If the company agrees that I can reuse the code for future clients, I charge less.

In this particular case, Company A and Company B settled out of court. Company B agreed to cease using the custom material and paid Company A an undisclosed amount for damages as well as legal expenses. As to the employee, I have no idea what happened to him, but I have no doubt that his reputation within the company was tarnished.

While this type of case was unheard of twenty years ago, the times they are a-changin'. Companies are doing more with less, employees have to work smarter, and relying on custom routines to boost productivity has become more the rule than the exception. Drafters and designers need to adapt to the new rules and companies need to make clear to their employees exactly what their expectations are regarding intellectual property...including what they consider proprietary to the company.

I've changed jobs to a large office using MicroStation after 13 years of AutoCAD. It's a lot like R 12 without the crashing, without the verticals, and without the subscriptions. Bentley helps our IT people develop productivity tools specifically for our office. MicroStation is not perfect and lacks much of the flexibilty and geometric tools of AutoCAD. But it has great features AutoCAD doesn't.
I'm debating about upgrading my home copy of AutoCAD 2002 to 2006. I'm guessing this is the year AutoCAD will force me to upgrade or loose the privilege. I've used 2004 and 2005 at my old office and found the changes made carrying recent drawings and customization harder. I've also struggled with proprietary contour data introduced by AutoCAD in Land Development Desktop that straight AutoCAD can't edit or plot reliably.
Once AutoCAD had some of the best technical web pages and BBS services in the software industry and great people running it. Point A and it's demise have left us with a nearly useless support section. My r12 manuals offer more support.
Maybe it's time to ping Bentley and see if they have a reasonable relationship with innovative clients. Thanks for letting me vent. I didn't realize it mattered to me until I read your article. I like your writing so please keep sending me CADzette even though I'm a MicroStation user now.
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Thanks for your editorial.

I am getting tired of the upgrade fast track. Autodesk is making it difficult for IT departments to keep up. Offices are just starting to acclimate to 2005 and now we already have to think about jumping to 2006. New releases are not automatically equivalent with quality. Shortening the software lifecycle may be the death knell for Autodesk. Hopefully they will revise their policy. In the interim, I too, am looking for alternatives and transitioning clients to other applications.
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Autodesk has forgotten that consultants like yourself are responsible for much of their success, not the glitzy rhetoric that comes out of the front office but times are changing and Autodesk knows it. They are targeting new users that respond to "cool" features and push-button drawing instead of intuitive users who have a solid background in the basics.

I suspect that older, long-time AutoCad users probably don't upgrade as often as Autodesk would like so they're probably abandoning them in favor of appealing to those who simply must have the latest and greatest (?).

Guess it's called evolution and if you're not on the edge of becoming outdated, I certainly qualify!

I'll continue to look forward to your newsletter, reading and learning a bit here and there.
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.....conflict of faith with regards to Autodesk.... Very well said. I am so very glad that I have been subscribing to your newsletter, extremely helpful.

I started using AutoSketch in 1986 then got into AutoCAD R9, Solids 3D, Mechanical Desktop, Pro-E, Inventor, Solid Works, Alibre. And recently due to your newsletter I have found IntelliCAD, and for less than $175 WOW Just downloaded the Demo (R5) and it is great, we'll probably buy the 5 seat package.

Keep up the good work and your newsletter. Excellent work.
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While the discussion groups can be a useful source of information (I troll them often looking for glimmers of gold), the quality of help can range depending on who is on-line and the level of the question. The lower level the question (how do I erase a line?) the better your chances of getting decent help.

If you are an advanced user, you are out of luck, because the only people who probably can get you a decent answer are the developers within Autodesk. Autodesk employees will participate in the discussion groups, but a lot of times they can't answer your question because the answer would be politically incorrect, i.e. "we don't support that" or "yes, that is a bug."

If you don't want to cough up the bucks for subscription (and I do recommend subscription, if you plan on sticking with Autodesk software), contact your local reseller. They may have a support plan you can buy at a considerable less cost.

When you make a change to your settings, your profile will automatically update without you having to re-save your profile. If you save a change to your workset, you have to actually go in and save it to your workset.

One way to leverage worksets is to set up your tool palettes for your different work processes and save each work process to a workset; i.e. when you are dimensioning, set one workset; when you are rendering, set up another workset. By using the drop-down in the workset toolbar, you can easily switch from one workset to another without ever going to the Options dialog.

Depending on the user response to worksets, Autodesk may move to phasing out profiles. This is only the first release with the workset feature, so look for increased functionality as users provide feedback to Autodesk and get more comfortable with their use.

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