4 ms·

"What connection does Cubic v Marty have to this?" It's the leading case and, as i said, quoted to this day in pretty much every other case. Please ignore the

"What connection does Cubic v Marty have to this?" It's the leading case and, as i said, quoted to this day in pretty much every other case. Please ignore the facts of this case, what matters here is the courts view on what it means to be related to the business, who bears the burden of proof, etc. "This is nothing like the scenarios we are talking about where an employee invents something on their own time with no connection to their company or their work. " Define "no connection". In the hundreds of times i've had employees claim this, i can count on one hand the nubmer of times they were right factually (IE they often don't know enough about a large company to know everything that is going on, etc), and can think of only one case i think a court might agree with them. Again, feel free to find a case that supports the general view that stuff you do on your own time is yours, and employers are going to have to fight to get it. Because Cubic says the opposite - the burden is on you to prove it is something that isn't owned by your employer.

greggman 11y ago
I'm not understanding your position > Because Cubic says the opposite The guy showed his thing to his employer and they started pursuing it. How could it not be clearer the employer owned it? I'm trying to understand how you can claim this shows Cubic shows anything other than if you give your ideas to your employer they become the employer's. That's pretty normal. Every day as an employee I have ideas I put into the products I create. Those ideas I get paid a salary for. I might have had those ideas while showering. They still go into my work and become the employer's. Outside projects can have conflicts but Cubic is not related to that case. As for companies owning everything, first off you might want to look up "duty of loyalty". Just because you thought of a solution at lunch (off hours) doesn't mean that therefore it doesn't belong to your employer. At the same time, in California at least, the has to be related to their work. Of course courts decide what's related and what's not and there's a broad spectrum. Selling coffee at night while building websites at a job seems pretty black and white. Making a mobile game at home while working on a console game at work is clearly in some kind of gray area. Back to "duty of loyalty" you have a duty not to compete with your employer. Putting out another game is arguably competing. The right thing to do as pointed out by others is it to get a signed letter from your employer. Google offers these. So does Microsoft. I'm sure other companies do as well. If your's doesn't consider that a reason to look for a better employer.
Pyxl101 11y ago
I'm not saying that I have a case showing that "what you do on your own time is yours". That won't be the case, especially if you've signed an agreement to the contrary as a salaried employee. I am simply pointing out that Cubic v Marty does not in any way disprove that idea that "what you do on your own time is you own" either, because that's not what happened in that case. Instead, the employee had an idea directly relevant to their employer's business, showed it to them, got a raise, pursued it as an actual work project, and then after all that went off to patent it privately. That is not really a situation that has to do with someone inventing something on their own in their private time having nothing to do with work, where the question is whether the employer should own it. The decision in Cubic v Marty should not be surprising or remarkable from what I have read. As an employee, you obviously cannot take home technology ideas that you were pursuing at work, as an official work project, and expect to patent them and get away with it. If you think there is something specifically interesting and relevant about it, then please point that out since I'm not sure what I'm missing. I am not saying that I have a more relevant case, just that I don't follow the relevance of that one. If you are a salaried employee, and you use company resources on the project, or review it with other employees, or the project is in your employer's field of business, or if you pursue the project as an official work project, and it's in the line of work you do for your employer, and if you have signed an agreement agreeing to do so, and these are all signs that the employer owns the result. The case where none of those things are true is the case that I think will be interesting.

greggman 11y ago

I'm not understanding your position > Because Cubic says the opposite The guy showed his thing to his employer and they started pursuing it. How could it not be clearer the employer owned it? I'm trying to understand how you can claim this shows Cubic shows anything other than if you give your ideas to your employer they become the employer's. That's pretty normal. Every day as an employee I have ideas I put into the products I create. Those ideas I get paid a salary for. I might have had those ideas while showering. They still go into my work and become the employer's. Outside projects can have conflicts but Cubic is not related to that case. As for companies owning everything, first off you might want to look up "duty of loyalty". Just because you thought of a solution at lunch (off hours) doesn't mean that therefore it doesn't belong to your employer. At the same time, in California at least, the has to be related to their work. Of course courts decide what's related and what's not and there's a broad spectrum. Selling coffee at night while building websites at a job seems pretty black and white. Making a mobile game at home while working on a console game at work is clearly in some kind of gray area. Back to "duty of loyalty" you have a duty not to compete with your employer. Putting out another game is arguably competing. The right thing to do as pointed out by others is it to get a signed letter from your employer. Google offers these. So does Microsoft. I'm sure other companies do as well. If your's doesn't consider that a reason to look for a better employer.

Pyxl101 11y ago

I'm not saying that I have a case showing that "what you do on your own time is yours". That won't be the case, especially if you've signed an agreement to the contrary as a salaried employee. I am simply pointing out that Cubic v Marty does not in any way disprove that idea that "what you do on your own time is you own" either, because that's not what happened in that case. Instead, the employee had an idea directly relevant to their employer's business, showed it to them, got a raise, pursued it as an actual work project, and then after all that went off to patent it privately. That is not really a situation that has to do with someone inventing something on their own in their private time having nothing to do with work, where the question is whether the employer should own it. The decision in Cubic v Marty should not be surprising or remarkable from what I have read. As an employee, you obviously cannot take home technology ideas that you were pursuing at work, as an official work project, and expect to patent them and get away with it. If you think there is something specifically interesting and relevant about it, then please point that out since I'm not sure what I'm missing. I am not saying that I have a more relevant case, just that I don't follow the relevance of that one. If you are a salaried employee, and you use company resources on the project, or review it with other employees, or the project is in your employer's field of business, or if you pursue the project as an official work project, and it's in the line of work you do for your employer, and if you have signed an agreement agreeing to do so, and these are all signs that the employer owns the result. The case where none of those things are true is the case that I think will be interesting.