Introduction

Intellectual property issues happen to surround the relationship between Louis and Sorian - as his employer - concerning the technology surrounding time travel. Louis was employed under Sorian during the research and development of the reactor and was responsible for the creation and storage of the Algorithm which ran the whole system.

Adam's dad created the time travel machine (dubbed "The Adam Project") whilst working under Sorian's company. Although Adam's dad had created the technology, the intellectual property did not fully belong to him but instead belonged to Sorian's company. The example of intellectual property reemerges with Louis' work later in the movie during the scene where they attempt to blow up the particle accelerator, during this scene it is revealed that there is only one copy of the algorithm in the whole world and that it is being used to run the reactor on a closed loop; the fact that there is only one copy of the algorithm in the whole world and that it is used for company operation categorizes the algorithm as a trade secret held by Sorian's corporation, this makes it easy for our protagonists to remove and destroy the hard drive containing it which stops the invention of time travel before it even begins.

Sorian's Ownership Rights?

Sorian owned the intellectual property of everything that Adam's dad did due to the fact that he developed it whilst employed by Sorian for research. This is due to the fact that companies own the intellectual property to things that you create whilst working under them[1]. It is unknown however if certain aspects of the Time Machine were actually owned by Sorian such as the Algorithm due to it being unknown if it was developed on or off company time and that certain inventions of outstanding benefit - which inventing Time Travel is certainly covered under - can allow the employee who created it certain privileges surrounding their invention[1].

Louis' Algorithm

Although Sorian owned the intellectual property to the algorithm there was only one copy of it and only Louis knew how to make it. Due to there only being one copy of it and there being no there being no other person than Louis who knew how to create it it can be gleaned that the algorithm was a trade secret, The fact that Louis had protected the intellectual property in this manner meant that once he had destroyed the algorithm on the storage drive - therefore preventing the invention of time travel - it could not be recreated as he resolved himself to distance himself from it despite the monumental discovery that it was. An example of Trade Secrets in the real world would be the Coca Cola secret formula which due to the fact that it was never patented is not known or copyable by the public at large as it is only known by a small group of people - similar to how only Louis knows how to make the algorithm.

Sources

[1] Osborne-Clark, "Supreme Court rules no employer is 'too big to pay' employees for inventions of outstanding benefit."

https://www.osborneclarke.com/insights/supreme-court-rules-no-employer-big-pay-employees-inventions-outstanding-benefit

[2] Coca-Cola, "Coca-Cola's Formula is at the world of Coca Cola."

https://www.coca-colacompany.com/company/history/coca-cola-formula-is-at-the-world-of-coca-cola