The most common formats for electronic CAD files are DXF and DWG. The most common format for archiving and reproduction is PDF.

To be the owner of the drawings you only need to say so in the Owner-Designer contract perhaps in a section called: Use of drawings specifications and other documents.

To be thorough you might say that the owner is deemed the author of the documents and shall retain all common law, statutory and other reserved rights, including the copyright. If it matters you might also say that the documents cannot be used by the designer for other projects.

"say that the owner is deemed the author of the documents"

Have an attorney review the contract.

Language transferring any and all rights is usually preferred over playing fast and loose with a fiction like "owner is deemed the author."

I should also point out that a "work made for hire" agreement would make the architect your employee or agent and you would automatically own his/her work product and be responsible for his/her work.

I think you are looking for an agreement that makes the architect a consultant or independent contractor responsible for his/her own work and the normal clause making him/her the owner of the documents would then need to be modified.

Under copyright law the person who "translates an idea into a fixed, tangible medium of expression" is considered the "author" so in this case, where the design ideas have already been put into a CAD drawing, the project owner has the right to claim authorship if he/she so wishes and would not be "playing fast and loose with a fiction".

However, the phrase "finishing touches" does not make it very clear what modifications the architect will make or if he/she will be professionally responsible for those modifications or if they involve structural, waterproofing, code compliance, and/or material and installation specifications. The architect could just be correcting the roof plane geometry on the roof plan and the elevations and/or adding dimensions with a more sophisticated CAD system.

If the architect does not put his/her name (and/or stamp) on the documents and doesn't intend to take responsibility for them (must take all or no responsibility under typical registration law) then the owner can be the author and have a stronger claim to ownership.

On the other hand, if the owner wants the architect to take full responsibility for the documents in their entirety and to put his/her name (and/or stamp) on them, then the architect will be the author.

In either case, ownership of the documents and the copyright can be established by modifying the typical document ownership clause in a standard Owner-Architect agreement form.

I can't advise you which form to use because I don't know enough about the project or the architect's expected role but don't use the term, "work for hire" anywhere in the agreement unless you want to be responsible for the architect's work.

"On the other hand, if the owner wants the architect to take full responsibility for the documents in their entirety and to put his/her name (and/or stamp) on them, then the architect will be the author. "

This is the chief reason for ransferring all rights, not playing fast and loose.

When multiple parties perform work (in this case the owner AND a hired person) they are both 'authors' of their respective portions, and declaring one part the sole author is an unnecessary legal fiction.

Have the rights transferred.

That doe NOT transfer the responsibility and liability for anything that a stamp covers.

The "standard Owner-Architect agreement form" promulgated bi AIA is so one sided it should never be used without a careful review by an experienced local attorney to protect the interests of the non-AIA party.

Too many uninformed assumptions. No one has yet indicated that the architect would put his/her name or stamp on the drawings but if he/she did so, there could be no shared responsibility. For an architect to put his/her name or stamp on a drawing means, by definition, that the entire drawing was prepared under his/her supervision which makes him/her solely responsible for the content no matter who might have contributed to it.

The stamp does not establish ownership of the plans, just responsibility (though it could be used as evidence of authorship and ownership).

The ownership can be conveyed without altering the responsibility.

Two different sections of law are here.

One is the state law governing the responsibility that attaches with stamping off a document, the other with copyright law of who owns the plans.

As a PE I can stamp off a plan and all it means is that I have reviewed it and take responsibility for the engineering performed. It does not matter who created the drawing, once it is stamped I am on the hook as long as the drawing is followed accurately (NO CHANGES CAN BE MADE).

If I created the drawing I may also have a claim to its ownership and the IP it represents (from simple copyright all the way to patent).