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Yeah -- this seems not to differ from the law in california / wisconsin. http://law.justia.com/codes/california/2011/lab/division-3/2870-2872/2870 http://law.j

Yeah -- this seems not to differ from the law in california / wisconsin. http://law.justia.com/codes/california/2011/lab/division-3/2870-2872/2870 http://law.justia.com/codes/california/2011/lab/division-3/2... These states already assign employees work 'not using equipment', 'not resulting from work', 'not in the employer's area of business'. Many california-based companies will echo this language in the IP assignment section of their employment contract. These protections don't help you if you're at, say, a big 3 company with a lot of businesses. I know someone who asked in their contract negotiation at google if G could provide a comprehensive list of areas of business and G refused.

DannyBee 10y ago
"These states already assign employees work 'not using equipment', 'not resulting from work', 'not in the employer's area of business'." This is close but no cigar: You missed " or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer; or" Which for larger companies, is huge. Admittedly though, this is the thing that employees always seem to miss in that labor code. "These protections don't help you if you're at, say, a big 3 company with a lot of businesses. I know someone who asked in their contract negotiation at google if G could provide a comprehensive list of areas of business and G refused." Even if we had, it wouldn't have mattered because of the above :) There's no way we could give a list of current research to random prospective employee. That said, it would make no sense to try to enumerate all areas of business that and keep it up to date. Instead, when we get requests, we just ask the relevant business owner.
- awinter-py 10y ago
  is there case law on prospective area of business?
  - DannyBee 10y ago
    Honestly, not really. Most of the cases that get brought are resolved fairly quickly, from what i can see. In particular, the ones actually between employee and employer, employees tend to lose except when it is very clear cut. IE if employer's interpretation of their R&D, etc, is not crazy, they tend to win. So if employee's has idea for juicing oranges, and works for skateboarding company, employee's probably gonna win. If employee has idea for juicing oranges, and works for blender company looking into other things, employee's gonna lose, even if employee didn't know about it, etc. But there's also a lot of cases out there that are just proxy wars between companies where a claim about IP ownership gets tacked on. These don't usually make for useful caselaw.
    - awinter-py 10y ago
      You're a dev+lawyer with large company experience -- if you were writing a federal law on employee IP assignment, what would it look like?
      - DannyBee 10y ago
        This is tough. I'm generally very pro-employee on this one. However, i've seen both sides of this. There really are crazy people, and plenty of them, who will try to use this to extract money from their employer, etc Generally, i'd say my view falls somewhere into what a small number of european countries do, and i think that would probably work well here: Employer still owns IP related to business. For the situation here (own time, etc), if you generate IP in such a situation (IE not related to business, etc), you must notify employer of that IP. Your employer has 6 months (or whatever) to buy it from you at fair market value. If they refuse to do so, it's yours. If they believe it's related to business, and you don't, well, you can fight it out in court if you want. The only downside to this system is that for large numbers of innovative employees, it generates huge overhead for the company even just to manage the process.
        awinter-py 10y ago
        From a legal standpoint I'm with the company -- if I pay someone to invent it's not unreasonable that I own what they invent. From an economics standpoint I think companies benefit from attracting innovative people. If you are hiring inventors, you want people who do it habitually and the best of those will feel uncomfortable signing away their free time. From this standpoint a company should worry about a new hire who doesn't object to a 24-hour IP assignment clause. I haven't seen hard numbers on this but I imagine that patent applications went from more individuals in ~1900 (wright brothers era) to more corporations circa 1950 (IBM transistor era). I'm sure there are many reasons for this (larger companies in the 50s, postwar employment trends, less low hanging fruit in basic research). But it would be great to see that trend reverse.

DannyBee 10y ago

"These states already assign employees work 'not using equipment', 'not resulting from work', 'not in the employer's area of business'." This is close but no cigar: You missed " or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer; or" Which for larger companies, is huge. Admittedly though, this is the thing that employees always seem to miss in that labor code. "These protections don't help you if you're at, say, a big 3 company with a lot of businesses. I know someone who asked in their contract negotiation at google if G could provide a comprehensive list of areas of business and G refused." Even if we had, it wouldn't have mattered because of the above :) There's no way we could give a list of current research to random prospective employee. That said, it would make no sense to try to enumerate all areas of business that and keep it up to date. Instead, when we get requests, we just ask the relevant business owner.

awinter-py 10y ago
is there case law on prospective area of business?
- DannyBee 10y ago
  Honestly, not really. Most of the cases that get brought are resolved fairly quickly, from what i can see. In particular, the ones actually between employee and employer, employees tend to lose except when it is very clear cut. IE if employer's interpretation of their R&D, etc, is not crazy, they tend to win. So if employee's has idea for juicing oranges, and works for skateboarding company, employee's probably gonna win. If employee has idea for juicing oranges, and works for blender company looking into other things, employee's gonna lose, even if employee didn't know about it, etc. But there's also a lot of cases out there that are just proxy wars between companies where a claim about IP ownership gets tacked on. These don't usually make for useful caselaw.
  - awinter-py 10y ago
    You're a dev+lawyer with large company experience -- if you were writing a federal law on employee IP assignment, what would it look like?
    - DannyBee 10y ago
      This is tough. I'm generally very pro-employee on this one. However, i've seen both sides of this. There really are crazy people, and plenty of them, who will try to use this to extract money from their employer, etc Generally, i'd say my view falls somewhere into what a small number of european countries do, and i think that would probably work well here: Employer still owns IP related to business. For the situation here (own time, etc), if you generate IP in such a situation (IE not related to business, etc), you must notify employer of that IP. Your employer has 6 months (or whatever) to buy it from you at fair market value. If they refuse to do so, it's yours. If they believe it's related to business, and you don't, well, you can fight it out in court if you want. The only downside to this system is that for large numbers of innovative employees, it generates huge overhead for the company even just to manage the process.
      - awinter-py 10y ago
        From a legal standpoint I'm with the company -- if I pay someone to invent it's not unreasonable that I own what they invent. From an economics standpoint I think companies benefit from attracting innovative people. If you are hiring inventors, you want people who do it habitually and the best of those will feel uncomfortable signing away their free time. From this standpoint a company should worry about a new hire who doesn't object to a 24-hour IP assignment clause. I haven't seen hard numbers on this but I imagine that patent applications went from more individuals in ~1900 (wright brothers era) to more corporations circa 1950 (IBM transistor era). I'm sure there are many reasons for this (larger companies in the 50s, postwar employment trends, less low hanging fruit in basic research). But it would be great to see that trend reverse.