ISO 27002:2022 – Control 5.32 – Intellectual Property Rights

Purpose of Control 5.32

Control 5.32 outlines the steps that organisations need to take to ensure that they remain compliant with intellectual property (IP) rights, including the use of proprietary software that is purchased, subscribed to or otherwise leased.

ISO defines intellectual property rights as belonging to one or more of the following categories:

1. Software copyright
2. Document copyright
3. Design rights
4. Trademark rights
5. Patents
6. Source code licences

“Legal, statutory, regulatory or contractual” agreements often place restrictions on how proprietary software is able to be used, including blanket restrictions on the copying, extraction or reverse-engineering of source code, among other measures.

For clarity, Control 5.32 does not deal with situations where the organisation is the IP holder, and instead focuses on their obligation towards third party intellectual property rights that are stated within a licence agreement, a data sharing agreement, or any other comparable legal mechanism.

It’s important to note that copyright and/or IP infringement often carries severe financial and legal consequences for any organisation that wilfully or unwittingly breaks the terms of an agreement. As such, Control 5.32 should be given adequate consideration, in order to avoid any unnecessary business disruption or information security events.

Attributes Table of Control 5.32

Control 5.32 is a preventive control that maintains risk by implementing procedures to ensure that the organisation remains compliant with any prevailing IP or copyright requirements, including mitigating the risk of the organisation’s own personnel failing to uphold their individual obligations.

General Guidance on Control 5.32

Control 5.32 asks organisations to consider the following guidelines, in order to safeguard any data, software or assets that could be deemed IP:

1. Implementing a “topic-specific” policy on the protection of IP rights, on a case-by-case basis, in line with their unique operational requirements.
2. Publishing and communicating clear procedures that categorically define how software and ICT products should be operated, to remain compliant with IP standards.
3. Using respected and reputable sources to acquire software, in order to avoid any inadvertent copyright breaches at source.
4. Using an organisational asset register to pinpoint any ICT assets that carry IP requirements as standard.
5. Ensuring that the organisation is able to produce proof of ownership at any given time, including physical and electronic licensing documents, communications and files.
6. Remaining compliant with agreed software usage limits, including concurrent users, virtual resources etc.
7. Plan and implement periodic reviews to ensure that the organisation’s ICT estate doesn’t contain any unauthorised or unlicensed software products.
8. Create operational and financial procedures that ensure licences are kept up to date.
9. Create procedures that cater for the safe, responsible and legally compliant transfer or disposal of software assets.
10. Ensure compliance with the terms and conditions, and fair use guidelines, of any software acquired from the public domain.
11. If the organisation has cause to utilise any commercial recordings, no part of that recording may be extracted, copied or converted by any means that aren’t contained within the software’s terms and conditions (including licensing), or by any prevailing copyright laws.
12. Respecting and adhering to the copyright laws or licensing terms of textual data, including standards, books, articles, reports etc.

Changes and Differences from ISO 27002:2013

27002:2022-5.32 replaces 27002:2013-18.1.2 (Intellectual property rights).

27002:2022-5.31 contains broadly the same set of guidelines as its 2013 counterpart, with two minor additions:

1. 27002:2022-5.31 contains advice on how to manage IP-related matters under the terms of a data sharing agreement.
2. 27002:2013-18.1.2 contains no mention of the residual benefits to an organisation seeking to manage the behaviour of individual staff, towards IP agreements and software use.

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