Investigations, Enforcement, & Compliance Alerts

Government contractors that sell software to the federal government, either directly or indirectly through a reseller agreement, frequently attempt to preserve and protect their copyright and other intellectual property rights by incorporating commercial licensing terms from an End User Licensing Agreement (EULA) into their government contracts. Many in-house lawyers have been closely monitoring questions related to EULA enforceability because the inclusion of favorable terms in a EULA can have a tremendous impact on the rights and obligations of all parties to a contract with the government. Two recent cases from government contract tribunals evaluate the limits on the enforceability of EULAs incorporated into government contracts and show the ramifications of failing to completely understand their terms.