Nathalie Kowalczyk — Product Design at Figma
Beyond the Pixel: From Design Craft to Strategic Advantage
September 18, 2025
15:50
Product & Management Stage
🇬🇧 English
Product & Management Stage
NDA. Czy ochrona informacji poufnych klienta musi oznaczać rezygnację z promocji własnej firmy?
About
Portfolio jest tak ważne dla każdego twórcy, jak tajemnica przedsiębiorstwa dla jego klienta.
Czy da się pogodzić te kwestie i zagwarantować sobie w umowie NDA możliwość ujawniania współpracy oraz udostępniania swoich prac w portfolio, mimo obowiązku zachowania poufności? To właśnie postaramy przybliżyć się w ramach wystąpienia.
Z prelekcji dowiesz się:
- na co zwrócić uwagę przy podpisywaniu umowy NDA,
- jak negocjować warunki NDA,
- czego właściwie nie można ujawniać w związku z NDA,
- czy podpisanie NDA zawsze wpływa na możliwość reklamy własnej działalności,
- czy usunięcie elementów powiązanych z danym przedsiębiorcą z projektu zwalnia z obowiązków wskazanych w NDA?
NDA coraz częściej pojawiają się na starcie różnych ważnych współprac.
Bez względu na ich rodzaj, surowość i poziom skomplikowania - warto wiedzieć, co dokładnie oznaczają i na co zwrócić uwagę przed podpisaniem.
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Watch this WaysConf session, then continue with related talks or explore the current programme.
From the recording
Talk in brief
In this WaysConf 2025 presentation, lawyers Maryla Bywalec and Weronika Bednarska from SO IN LAW explain how creative and technical professionals can protect their right to self-promotion without violating non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). They challenge the common misconception that NDAs are non-negotiable formalities, demonstrating how standard corporate templates often contain highly restrictive or legally ineffective clauses, such as perpetual confidentiality terms or intellectual property grabs during initial pitches. The speakers outline the legal boundaries of trade secrets under Polish law and explain why transferring economic copyrights prevents creators from showcasing work in public portfolios, even when relying on inalienable moral rights to authorship. To resolve these conflicts, they recommend negotiating explicit portfolio clauses directly into contracts, obtaining formal consent before publishing, or heavily modifying design assets to remove any association with the client.
Key takeaways
- 01
Every NDA is Negotiable
Even when dealing with large corporations, creative professionals should not assume confidentiality agreements are set in stone. Standard templates often protect things the client does not actually need to protect, making negotiation highly effective.
Watch from 2:11 - 02
Beware of Intellectual Property Grabs in NDAs
Some corporate NDAs contain clauses stating that any ideas or concepts presented during initial pitch meetings automatically become the property of the corporation. Contractors must carefully read pre-collaboration agreements to avoid losing their proprietary concepts.
Watch from 6:48 - 03
Perpetual Confidentiality Clauses are Ineffective
Under Polish law, open-ended or perpetual obligations without a specified term are highly disfavored and can generally be terminated at any time. A standard, legally sound approach is to limit confidentiality to the duration of the collaboration plus three to five years.
Watch from 13:11 - 04
Transferring Copyright Limits Portfolio Rights
Once a creator transfers their economic copyrights to a client, publishing that work in an online portfolio constitutes a form of public exploitation they no longer have the right to perform. The inalienable moral right to authorship does not automatically grant the right to distribute the work publicly online.
Watch from 20:38 - 05
Secure Explicit Portfolio Clauses Early
The safest way to build a portfolio is to negotiate explicit clauses in the main contract or NDA that define exactly what, when, and where work can be showcased. This prevents future disputes and avoids the awkwardness of asking for permission when preparing to change jobs.
Watch from 26:39
Read edited transcript highlights
These concise notes were edited from automatic captions and checked against the talk structure. They are not a verbatim transcript.
The Myth of Non-Negotiable Corporate Templates
Many professionals mistakenly believe that agreements sent by large corporations are completely non-negotiable, especially when they are the smaller party in the transaction. In reality, these organizations often send standard templates that do not accurately reflect what they actually need to protect. Pointing out illogical or overly restrictive clauses frequently leads corporate legal teams to quickly agree to remove or modify them, proving that negotiation is always a viable option.
Watch from 2:11How Pitch Meetings Can Turn into IP Traps
A recent case involved a software developer who wanted to pitch a project concept to a major corporation. The corporation sent an NDA containing a clause stating that any ideas, concepts, or designs presented during the initial meeting would immediately become the corporation's property. Had the developer signed this without reading, they would have legally surrendered their proprietary ideas before even securing a contract, highlighting the danger of treating NDAs as mere formalities.
Watch from 6:48The Legal Reality of Perpetual NDAs
Clients frequently demand that confidentiality obligations last forever or for absurdly long periods like fifty years. However, Polish law does not favor perpetual, open-ended commitments, and such clauses can often be legally terminated at any time, rendering them ineffective. A much more practical and legally sound standard is to limit the NDA's duration to the active period of collaboration plus a reasonable post-project window of three to five years.
Watch from 13:11When the Fact of Collaboration is a Trade Secret
Even if an NDA does not explicitly forbid mentioning a client, doing so might still violate trade secret laws if the association has economic value or if disclosure causes harm. For example, if a design agency suffers a public relations crisis, the client may have a legitimate economic interest in not being publicly associated with them. Additionally, some large brands treat the right to disclose partnerships as a commercial asset, sometimes requiring massive discounts from partners like Microsoft in exchange for public logo usage.
Watch from 17:24Why Moral Rights Do Not Guarantee Portfolio Rights
Creators often believe that their inalienable moral right to authorship allows them to showcase their work under any circumstances. However, once economic copyrights are transferred to a client, publishing the work in a publicly accessible online portfolio or on social media is legally classified as public distribution and exploitation. Because the creator has surrendered these economic rights, doing so without explicit contractual permission constitutes copyright infringement, regardless of authorship.
Watch from 20:38Proactive Contractual Solutions for Portfolios
To avoid legal risks and the awkwardness of asking for permission later, professionals should secure explicit portfolio rights during initial contract negotiations. A well-drafted clause should specify exactly which elements can be published, on which platforms, and at what time—such as waiting until after the client has officially launched the product. If a client refuses, the alternative is to heavily modify the designs by changing names, colors, and branding so they can no longer be linked to the original client.
Watch from 26:39
Grzegorz Róg — CEO at easy_
Jak dowozić z AI?
September 18, 2025
15:50
Product & Management Stage
🇵🇱 Polish
Veronika Tamaio Flores — Product Lead at Railsware
AI or not AI: making sense of the hype
September 18, 2025
14:45
Product & Management Stage
🇬🇧 English
Dr Bart Jaworski — Senior Product Manager, Product management content creator at Bartosz Jaworski PM
How come "Solution looking for a problem" is no longer a joke in Product Management due to AI
September 18, 2025
13:40
Product & Management Stage
🇬🇧 English
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