This article is FUD. Employer contracts are concerned that you are attempting to take company proprietary information and repackage it on your own time for sal

This article is FUD. Employer contracts are concerned that you are attempting to take company proprietary information and repackage it on your own time for sale. This sort of behavior clearly falls into 'inventions'. However, most of the contracts I've seen have a clause which states that the invention must be related to the business of the company. If you work in the games industry and make games on your own time for sale, your employer might take issue with that. If you work at a games company and run a real estate business on the side, who cares? Similarly, if you work at a games company and write real estate software, they're still not likely to care. The issue arises: - where the customer you are getting money from is the same customer (potential customer) of your current employer. - where the IP in your side project has potential business value to your current employer. If in doubt, you simply tell your employer up front and get it in writing (email) that it's o.k. I've done this in the past, and the HR department usually will defer the decision to your Manager, who has to make a determination if the work you're doing has potential cross-cutting business concerns. The bigger issue (from an employer standpoint) is that you are not devoting 100% effort to your current employer. So as long as: - you make it clear that there are no customer overlaps - there is no IP that the company would ever be interested in - that this is done own your own time (and off-premises) No one should care what you do in your own time.