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Engineer refusing to file/disclose patents

389 points by chrisbennet 8y ago

analog31 8y ago
>>> Since employees write these in their spare time... Oops.
- kabdib 8y ago
  (Asking for legal advice on the Internet. Double oops). There's a point in the application process where you need to affirm, under penalty of perjury, a bunch of legal stuff about the invention. I can see having second thoughts about (say) the prior art landscape, or having sincere doubts that the application teaches something patentable, and refusing to sign. If the potential patents are actually valuable, the cheapest way for the company to realize them is to pay the engineer for his time. The company already sounds like a horrible place to work, and lawsuits against current or former employees are going to send an awesome message to the ranks. Engaging in a suit to force someone to patent an invention is going to get really interesting and expensive. It's also possible that the engineer has been gaming the patent reward system, turning in inventions that are just reworked prior art, or that are not actually very valuable (too narrow or obscure to be interesting, or too broad and risky to use in legal action). 30 patents is a lot, relatively speaking -- perhaps the company realized that it was actually getting low-quality inventions and decided to adjust the compensation accordingly.
robinduckett 8y ago
Yeah this manager guy is an asshole.
- dboreham 8y ago
  I think idiot would be the better top level designation. So : Idiot asshole.
  - convolvatron 8y ago
    i've struggled with these quite a bit over the years. an idiot often ends up being an asshole because they are just incapable of empathizing with other people's perspectives. maybe in this case they think they are just looking out for the companies interest and being extremely short sighted. an asshole, who isn't an idiot, often uses the pretense of idiocy to obfuscate their actions...even worse - as a kind of trolling. given that these behaviors are so often fused, I wonder if it even makes sense to try to tease out whether there is malicious intent.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- kerng 8y ago
  I think inexperienced or naive might be better words. He clearly understands the issue, but feels totally not empowered to change anything. At this stage, I'd propose the employee quit and then possibly deliver the work as a consultant for good dollars.
jv22222 8y ago
Anyone know how a patent team might determine the value of a patent?
- notyourwork 8y ago
  Depends on the patent and the application. Could be stupid simple but save a company 0.01$ per “item” and when you make millions of “item” a year that adds up. So it’s entirely based on how the patent can be applied.
- Rebelgecko 8y ago
  Where I work, the inventor(s) get a cut of any royalties
pimmen 8y ago
"We offered X dollars for patents, the engineer accepted that price. We now want the patents for X-Y dollars, the engineer doesn't accept this price. I have no idea how to negotiate and I would like to strongarm him instead. Help me!"
- chrisbennet 8y ago
  I up-voted you but I suspect that the manager has little say over the aspects of the situation that would help retain the engineer. Some bean counter has determined that they can save money by not paying for something they used to pay for - and its working. They are paying less (which is all the bean counter cares about). They fact that they are getting less or costing the company is not his problem.
  - pimmen 8y ago
    Yeah, I suspect the OP is caught between a rock and a hard place. I know very little about the situation from what's given in the Stackexchange post, but this is how I imagine it; The OP has had no say over this policy at all, and is actually pretty powerless overall. He/she has no ability to give out titles, perks, bonuses, promotions or anything really. Still the position of the OP entails being a link between senior management and the actual engineers, so the OP is the only one in management who actually sees this engineer's work ethic, creativity and problem solving. The few times this engineer has been in contact with senior management the engineer has pushed back their requests for him to just give up whatever work's been done, which doesn't work because the engineer barely knows who the f they are. So the senior management now asks the OP to fix it, but grants almost no authority to do anything. The senior management would like this situation to end in a situation where they don't have to roll back whatever policies they implemented, or treat people in special ways just to get what they already believe is rightfully theirs, and if this doesn't go well they want to blame someone lower for the mess.
UncleEntity 8y ago
Wait, so the engineer came up with an idea in their spare time, demo'd it to the bosses then decided that it wasn't worth it to follow up on the idea in their spare time but now they want to somehow force them to turn it over after apparently deleting all evidence of it? I don't actually know what to think about this (and I'm a big fan of absurdity) but suspect there's some hidden moral to this story...
- dboreham 8y ago
  There's a whole legal theory behind what's discussed in the OP : patent rights get assigned to employer by employee under terms of their employment agreement, subject to whatever laws pertain under the relevant jurisdiction (e.g. California is probably different). The $1000 bonus thing has a legal purpose to beef up the employer's rights to the IP, since under law the rights accrue to the inventor not the employer. And on and on. So this manager is a clueless idiot who needs some schooling in the law and the various risks he is running in taking the action he's taken. Ianal, but...seriously..if you're an engineering manager you should know this stuff to some level.
  - notyourday 8y ago
    Would a $0.01 bonus be sufficient to beef up employer's right to the IP?
cygned 8y ago
> His employment agreement states that any and all intellectual property he generates while employed with us, even during weekends/free-time, is the property of the company. If I had such a clause in a contract, I would turn down the opportunity. Maybe I am missing something obvious here, but I don't see the point of this. Even worse, this: > any and all intellectual property sounds to me like one couldn't do anything creative in their spare time. Even a picture painted would belong to their employer.
- syshum 8y ago
  Unfortunately it is a standard boilerplate in many Employment Agreements in the US. Over broad terms written by contract lawyers completely one sided. Fortunately most of the time if the employer is stupid enough to sue for non-work related IP many courts will toss the case and render the clause void in the agreement. However there have been a few bad rulings as well. I remember on case where the employer sued an employee over a book they wrote after the book was successful, the employer happened to be having financial problems... If I remember correctly the judge ruled in favor of the employer
  - xkcd-sucks 8y ago
    >Unfortunately it is a standard boilerplate in many Employment Agreements in the US. Every organization says it wants to be exceptional, except where it comes to employee rights and compensation. Then it's "sorry but this is just how everyone does it", e.g. "you can't get b tyer treatment elsewhere"
  - mcguire 8y ago
    Do you remember the book? Was it related to the area of employment?
    - syshum 8y ago
      I dont, it was several years ago that I read the analysis in an obscure publication, if I recall it was not related to employment, it was a work of fiction and the guy worked as a engineer or some other profession close to that
UseStrict 8y ago
Upper management probably all patted themselves on the back after cutting the payouts. They'll tout that they "saved the company thousands, every year." In most industries innovation is key, cutting engineer pay for what is essentially voluntary work is setting themselves up for obsoletion in the near future. I don't blame the guy for "not remembering" what his boss was talking about.
- JackFr 8y ago
  I imagine that someone looked at the program and saw it as largely a waste of money -- that it's unlikely that the patents being churned out at 2-3 a week, as IP were not worth the money they were paying for them, and a side-door bonus for engineering staff, they were not the most efficient means to talent retention & compensation. It seems the better solution might have been to tighten up the review process -- keep the money the same but accept fewer. If the individual contributor in question was really as good as reported, he would have been untouched.
  - make3 8y ago
    this is the solution for sure. Having been through the patent process myself, I can't imagine what sort of BS patents they were churning out for an engineer to be able to have 2-3 a week. Making them conditional to review would have really improved on this
    - jpatokal 8y ago
      That's 2-3 a week across the entire company (of unknown size), not a single engineer.
    - Majromax 8y ago
      > I can't imagine what sort of BS patents they were churning out for an engineer to be able to have 2-3 a week. I interpret that part of the question as the program as a whole seeing 2-3 patents per week, spread over the entire engineering team. The employee in question produced 30 patents over two years -- still an astonishing rate, but evidently worthwhile because 'all of these inventions are used in our products'.
anoncake 8y ago
> IT has searched his OneDrive, laptop, etc., and we can't find a single shred of code/documentation on these ideas. A smart engineer is not stupid. Who knew?
- the_arun 8y ago
  I smell serious Privacy concern just in this statement. Could company do that? I wonder why that engineer still working for that company if he is so good & company is playing all these tricks.
  - brown9-2 8y ago
    Are you asking if the company can search the company’s property?
    - gervase 8y ago
      I took the parent question to be asking about where the (personal privacy) line falls: - Can an employer search a personal laptop (BYOD)? - What about a personal Dropbox account? Personal emails? What if they are only in the cloud, and not on the device? - Do these answers change if there are logs showing these services were accessed with a company device during work hours? - Could they look in his personal laptop bag if they suspected he had a USB drive with the information inside? These are generally very locality-specific and dependent on the various employment agreements, codes of conduct, etc. that the employee signed, so in general it's not very informative to speculate on where those lines are drawn. However, I do think these are useful questions that any employee should be able to answer for themselves about their own current employer, if only so that they're cognizant of their rights.
  - mhuffman 8y ago
    A lot of your privacy goes away as an employee! You will notice here[1] for example, that cameras can be put in workplace bathrooms in many states. All of your work accounts and work hardware belong to the company and it is your problem if you put personal information on them. [1] https://www.upcounsel.com/video-surveillance-laws-by-state https://www.upcounsel.com/video-surveillance-laws-by-state
jknoepfler 8y ago
money will not fix this situation. if you breach trust once over compensation, you lose all goodwill from your staff. your talented staff will leave immediately. there's nothing to be done to fix it, full stop. the literal second a company begins curtailing engineer benefits they transition from a forward moving company to a fungibility-fest maintenance mode enterprise
- ngngngng 8y ago
  Well said. I started my dream job 1 year ago. 6 months ago we were purchased and our benefits were all cut. I've lost over 50% of my team, we can't hire new people. I still have very interesting engineering problems to solve, but I feel cheated out of what I signed up for.
  - marton78 8y ago
    Your dream job is no more. Your should leave, too.
    - ngngngng 8y ago
      I know, i've been casually looking. I'm just so determined to make a large salary leap on my next job and find somewhere I can stay for a few years (that's what I thought I had with the current job before things changed). Because of this i'm taking my time looking because my resume only gets better by the day with what I do currently.
  - Washuu 8y ago
    Similar story here. Company was purchased recently, new health benefits are messing people up, and most of the staff lost anywhere from 20% to 60% of their compensation. I am trying to move on, but I can not solve data structures/algorithms on white boards with people staring over my shoulder. :|
    - aitchnyu 8y ago
      My interviewees wrote code by hand, but on a paper on a desk, seated opposite me. Surely you can ask for this less stressful alternative?
stevebmark 8y ago
I can't imagine being as narcissistic as some of the devs replying here. Have none of you really worked at a company that introduced an overly ambitious rewards program and had to dial it back? He filed 30 "successful" patents? He was gaming the system to get above market pay. If you think someone came up with 30 truly novel and useful software patents in 2 years you might not have read enough software patents. They didn't "screw" him, the company made a responsible decision to cut back on leaking money. It looks like they've offered him more than generous compensation for the work after the change. I bet this asshole developer isn't leaving because he can't find anyone who will pay him this absurd rate on par with the system he was gaming. He's really complaining that he can only make more money be being promoted? Has he worked in software before? Clearly he's never been in a management/leadership position where he actually has to balance the concerns of the company with his own ego.
- crb002 8y ago
  30 accepted patents is impressive regardless of cashflow for them. Perhaps put him on the legal team editing patents? Leverage what he loves.
  - ska 8y ago
    submitted vs. accepted is a long and twisty path ... if were are talking 2 years here most or all of them will not have been reviewed yet.
- chrisbennet 8y ago
  Then the company shouldn't mind not getting the patents. After all, they really aren't worth that much right? Everyone's happy, well everyone but this manager.
  - stevebmark 8y ago
    Read. They need the work, not the patent. You know, the thing they're paid to do as an engineer. It doesn't matter if they did it on their own time voluntarily, it obviously belongs to the company. It's the engineer's own fault if they did it on personal time to keep trying to game the system (even after being offered 25k, jesus).
the_arun 8y ago
Reminds me of this story - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goose_That_Laid_the_Golden_Eggs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goose_That_Laid_the_Golden...
CalChris 8y ago
If this were a salesperson and they reduced commissions, would it surprise anyone that motivations were also reduced? If management thinks these patents are worth less, a reasonable position, then they should file fewer of them. Indeed the cost of patent prosecution is significantly greater than the engineer's patent compensation. Raise the filing bar; that'll save some money. But if they lower patent compensation, they have to understand that it will also lower motivation.
- stygiansonic 8y ago
  Indeed, if they lowered patent compensation they are explicitly signaling that it is of less value and importance. The fact that this engineer doesn’t want to contribute anymore lines up with that.
z3t4 8y ago
When military clears buildings they leave a way for the enemy to exit ...
cashsterling 8y ago
Not a lawyer. From past start-up legal experience... it depends on the state. In some/many states, an employer unilaterally changing compensation for a portion of an employment agreement, without asking employees to resign an updated contract, would render those portions of the agreement null and void. Some states have employment laws against certain non-compete and [iirc] blanket IP assignment clauses. In those states, even if employees sign to those clauses, they are still void according to state law.
ringaroll 8y ago
This should be expected. You screwed the guy, you got screwed in return. Be happy that he has not yet left and offer him $300k - $400k as a bonus if that work is so important. > IT has searched his OneDrive, laptop, etc., and we can't find a single shred of code/documentation on these ideas. Ahahah. Is anyone surprised that a smart engineer knows what he is doing?
salawat 8y ago
An Engineer is not bound to produce squat for you outside of what you ask him to during his work hours. I encourage most junior devs to keep their projects to themselves in fact. Weaponization of patents ethically demands it. From reading about said company's treatment of this engineer in particular, they are simply reaping what they've sown. Marginalize your engineers, or try to catch them out with legal maneuvering (which is what most employment contracts now are intended as) when you first hire them to hedge your bets at being able to claim something down the line, and this is what you get. Edward Demmings says one of the keys to Quality is to maintain and foster An environment in which the craftsman's pride in his work can flourish. Blanket claims to IP and marginalized patents are not that.
- usrusr 8y ago
  > An Engineer is not bound to produce squat for you outside of what you ask him to during his work hours. But there was already a presentation. A court favorable of the employer could easily regard that as an implicit promise to provide what was presented, off-hours or not.
_cs2017_ 8y ago
> This engineer has filed over 30 successful patents over the past 2 years, and all of these inventions are used in our products. From my limited experience, typical software patents are either ideas that might (if you're very optimistic) be useful in the future, or descriptions of an approach that everyone already kinda knows. The only purpose they serve is to create a legal weapon to use in patent lawsuits or counter lawsuits. None of the ones I've seen would improve performance or functionality of any product at the time they were written. Writing 30 patents in two years that actually improved a product seems to me beyond hard. Invented by a single engineer rather than a team, doing it in their spare time, only adds to my degree of disbelief. Has anyone seen examples of such productivity that you could share? Since all patents are public, an inventor's name would suffice.
- kuroguro 8y ago
  I don't think it's mentioned anywhere that they are software patents. Might be a hardware engineer.
  - _cs2017_ 8y ago
    They were searching the engineer's laptop for the code, so I assumed those were software patents. But maybe there's a decent amount of code even in a hardware patent?
  - NikkiA 8y ago
    To me they were described in a way that I assumed we were talking about process patents, which could be software, hardware, and even just plain ordering of how parts of the process are done.
- JackFr 8y ago
  My company just started promoting such a policy, and a guy on the business side mentioned filing a patent for some software I had written. Now the work is subtle and nontrivial, but in terms of its novelty, it might be worthwhile as a lightning talk at a meetup, and I can't see it as patentable. It's all known techniques. Another person at the company assures me that this is very patentable, but maybe I just don't get it.
melonakos 8y ago
The employer is horrific. Leave. Yesterday.
a-dub 8y ago
This is silly, and case in point why the California statute should be federal law.
olliej 8y ago
The standard employment contract in us tech is basically: if you do it on company time, or use company property, equipment, or anything paid for by the company it belongs to them - you would almost certainly be in breach of contract if you refused to disclose. Now even if you didn’t use any company resources, most contracts provide at the very least the right for your company to use any IP you develop, even in your off time, even without any of their resources. Your contract in all likelihood would give them actual ownership of the IP. You could choose not to tell them about this IP, and I believe you would be fine, as long as you never used or published it - even after termination of employment - because not being required to disclose the IP does not change ownership - it belongs to the company, even if the company does not know about it. Source: going over job offers+contracts with a lawyer
- CalChris 8y ago
  Getting legalistic about this would only lead to an even worse outcome than reducing compensation. Getting legalistic is from the beatings will continue until morale improves management school. Instead, management needs to understand that the engineer has a point.
- repsilat 8y ago
  > on company time, or use company property, equipment, or anything paid for by the company Mine have also said "relating to the company's business" which I imagine (IANAL) can make a lot of programming projects difficult, and I guess might make a lot of non-programming hobbies difficult if you work for a BigCo -- creative media, "things on the internet" etc etc. And not a line you want to even walk close to IMO with companies of that size.
  - reboog711 8y ago
    > "relating to the company's business" The company I work for also has this. The company is a big entertainment conglomerate. I'm unclear what businesses the company is not in; but most of the things I do in my spare time include--songwriting, book publishing, blog writing--could classify as things the company also does. My `exclusion` clause was over 1 page long and I spent quite a bit of money on a lawyer to put it together.
trhway 8y ago
> IT has searched his OneDrive, laptop, etc., and we can't find a single shred of code/documentation on these ideas. neural implants cant come too early. >I've tried offering a one-off bonus for him to just anonymously leave a thumb drive with the data on my desk after hours, but he just claims he "doesn't know what I'm talking about". the engineer is smart while the manager doesn't seem so if he really thought that the engineer would walk into that trap. > and even an offer of $25,000.00 for the IP didn't work, which would have been according to the "old rules". I think he's worried that by agreeing to such a deal, he's opening himself up to legal liability (it would involve indirectly admitting he was being dicey/dishonest about "not knowing what I'm talking about") Definitely a Fisher/Spassky level of managerial thinking. Only at this game the rooks aren't sacrificed, they are shafted.
dejaime 8y ago
"Oh No! This innovation program is bringing too many good results! Better dial it down a little..."
- stagger87 8y ago
  Let's be real, the quality of patents generated in programs like this are very low. A good patent is worth more than 5k.
shmerl 8y ago
The company shouldn't encourage filing software patents.
ummonk 8y ago
One of the many benefits of being in California is that work that you do in your own free time with your own resources legally belongs to you. I’m not sure what would happen in the state this engineer is in on the other hand. Of course, they can’t force him to complete and deliver work he did in his own free time but I’m not sure whether he would be able to reuse it or file a patent himself.
OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago
> The company has recently decided to dial back the benefits for this program, to a simple $100 YOUR COMPANY IS CLEARLY IN THE WRONG. TRY NOT FUCKING OVER EMPLOYEES.
umvi 8y ago
My company pays peanuts for patents. Something like $50 plus a name on a plaque. I might have filed patents for $5000 a pop, but for $50 it's not even worth the effort.
gbrown_ 8y ago
> I think he's getting ready to switch jobs, and we need the technical information/code he used to create the demo. This irks me, it's not explained or alluded to why this is needed, surely this should be wanted?
- usrusr 8y ago
  Already sold to customers down the chain, who sold it to theirs? If it's that kind of pants down situation I guess that the engineer in question will stay just long enough to watch the drama play out.
ris 8y ago
This company's "patent program" is everything that's wrong with the patent system. Patents are (well, were) intended to protect critical parts of work, not to be farmed for building up a war chest.
hpcjoe 8y ago
A bunch of things about this I've not seen discussed in detail, and they are important. What we know: 1) The company changed the compensation model for patents, and now have lost contribution from one of their most prolific users of that model. 2) The manager is concerned that the employee is going to leave. And then the IP will be effectively lost to the employer. 3) Based upon #2, they have engaged a significant hunt for information, looking through his data storage, his laptop, etc. At likely fairly significant expenditure of time/effort/personnel who should be engaged in other tasks. That is, the company is paying real money for the opportunity cost associated with their screwing up their policy. They are paying time and materials, resources, consultants, etc. to try to find something that is not likely findable. They are apparently ok with this use of capital. They are apparently less ok with paying what their engineer considered a fair market compensation for their effort. At some point, possibly already, they will have spent more money on the search and recovery effort than they would have paid the engineer. 4) Somehow the manager is of the opinion that the employee does not want to "admit" that they are "lying". What we don't know: 1) The value of the previously patented work. You can get a glimmer of the thought processes by noting that the manager focused on the volume and not the quality of the work, by counting. You can get a sense of disbelief in high quality from the comments here. So we don't know if this senior engineer was putting out good product, figured out a way to game a broken system and no longer wishes to play. I am going to assume the senior engineer put out a good product and patent set. Such that the company was willing to prosecute patent filings, and saw value in them. So much so, that when they broke their standing rate on compensation for voluntary work, they decided to spend real capital pursuing this voluntary work. 2) whether or not this engineer is really looking for a new job. Well, put another way, whether or not they were looking for a new job ... yet. Likely they'll catch on from StackExchange, see their manager post, realize that they need to git while the gitting is good. 3) whether or not this manager has communicated this to senior management, whether or not this person has decision or negotiation authority to solve this. Chances are, they do within specific boundaries. So ... A few obvious thoughts: 1) the company policy change is idiotic. Their pursuit of IP across the systems suggests that they realize that they messed up something fierce. 2) By the managers own admission, they badly broke trust with the employee, not only by reducing potential compensation, but then further by rooting through the employee's systems. Yes, they have a right to do this. They are likely not breaking any laws. But they broke trust in (at least 2) major ways. 3) If the IP is potentially really valuable to the company, as in material to their bottom line as a whole, or in a competitive stance, chances are the employee is very well aware of this. And they know that the old compensation model, the one they were using, wouldn't be of sufficient value to themselves for the value it would bring the company. Which means that this is still a negotiation, and no one has seemingly asked the basic question of "what would it take for you to recall and rediscover this work?" Given the breach of trust, this negotiation tactic may not work. But given that the employee appears to be a fairly smart cookie, they will likely play this to maximize their benefit. 4) The manager seems unable or unwilling to come to terms with changes they need to make in order to get this guy the comp he wants. This is a solvable problem with the right management, and the right managerial attitude. If you can't promote him because your rules don't allow this, and you think he is a valuable team member, and a promotion would help shake up his memory ... hey, this is solvable. It is left as an exercise for the student, but hint, if the rules are problematic ... It seems to me that their are a number of potential solutions to this, none of which require people to admit to lying, or allowing them to be accused of lying. The company simply has to decide how important this IP is to them, to decide what changes they should make. At minimum, this manager sounds like they are not a keeper.
tntn 8y ago
So I know the ownership of IP produced on an engineer's own time is pretty dicey (even in California, where it depends on whether the work is in the same field as the company, or something), and most of the time employers seem to have some claim to ownership over all work done by their employees. And yet loads of people employed by companies work on open source software, write blogs, work on their own stuff, etc and companies don't seem to get involved. So what's the situation here? Is it something like companies legally may be able to assert ownership over work down by employees of their own volition on their own time with their own equipment, but mostly choose not to bother with it? Assume I have an "ordinary" contract in the USA. Would I need to worry about this if I wanted to write stuff on a blog, assuming it isn't directly related to work I do? (I understand that if it really matters I should talk to a lawyer, and will not interpret any responses as legal advice, etc. I'm just curious if other professional employers worry about this or just quietly do their own thing)
- encoderer 8y ago
  Some employers are quite strict, so avoid those (google, famously). Avoid even a hint of crossover with your employer’s business, use your own equipment and time, and work for a successful company that is too busy with its own customers. If some how you make a billion dollars (you won’t) it might be a problem. A million won’t even be noticed.
  - Judgmentality 8y ago
    With the exception of Waymo going after Uber (which was a really unusual situation), when has Google gone after previous employees over IP?
- peteradio 8y ago
  Without these clauses Employers don't have a chance at getting the IP. With these clauses there is at least the opening of a lawsuit. Most are probably not in a position to fight these lawsuits whether or not they'd win in the long run.
- duxup 8y ago
  >Assume I have an "ordinary" contract in the USA. Would I need to worry about this if I wanted to write stuff on a blog, assuming it isn't directly related to work I do? In the US it is going to depend on the company, but I feel safe in saying "most" companies don't care about such things and largely limit their interest to the work you do directly for them.
duxup 8y ago
Company removes incentives for a employee to do thing(s), and doesn't get thing(s) and is now surprised by result. It's always hard to know but the way this is being described sounds like the person asking the engineer for this information has little to no relationship with this person. That can't be helping. They cut the incentive program that gave him extra money and insist he move to move on his career, they clearly don't belive what he says and I'm sure he has picked up on that. None of this seems like the way you treat a valuable person at the company.
normalperson 8y ago
Baby Boomers are SICK people.
infinity0 8y ago
> His employment agreement states that any and all intellectual property he generates while employed with us, even during weekends/free-time, is the property of the company. This is illegal and unenforceable in many places in the world including the whole EU and California (only stuff done using company resources or relating to company work). I'm surprised at the other comments here that seem to be totally ignorant of this.
blackflame7000 8y ago
In a nutshell, “We want this engineer to continue to bring us value, we just don’t want to pay for it.”
darkout 8y ago
So many red flags in a single thread.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
usrusr 8y ago
So the engineer knows his game theory instincts: offer me a price I will accept or no deal, no matter how much you increase your offer later on. In this case, it was particularly easy/insulting, because they already knew a reasonable price he would have accepted. That IP is gone.
0_gravitas 8y ago
How is this IP stuff not considered a massive violation of privacy?
jacknews 8y ago
Regardless of the legal situation, this is a pretty shabby way to treat an employee. While the bonus was good, he contributed patents. How much did the company profit from those? Quite a bit more than you paid in bonus, I'll wager. And now you've cut the bonus, but still expect (and seem to be trying to force) the employee to continue contributing in his spare time? Sheesh.
ezoe 8y ago
>His employment agreement states that any and all intellectual property he generates while employed with us, even during weekends/free-time, is the property of the company. Seriously. That cannot be worked in my country. This line alone indicates that this employer is evil.
brogrammernot 8y ago
I wish I knew was company this was so I could blacklist them from any future contact. @OP, upper management fucked up majorly and if I were you I’d be looking to leave as well. Everything you’ve said makes them seem like complete assholes who said “fuck the culture” and opted for profits over people. What should you do? Tell the guy in person that he should leave, take the patented material with him and don’t look back. The company has had to have made more than 110k off his parents, and this is such an infuriating question to be asking.
duado 8y ago
I’m reminded of the quip, “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”
mikekchar 8y ago
Rule number one: don't piss off your programmers. Programmers produce things that are largely unintelligible to management. The whole reason we have arguments about processes is because we can't measure the productivity of our programmers. It's difficult to even measure the quality of the work without getting other programmers involved. Even if there is a serious bug, how do you determine if it's due to bad luck, sloppy coding or sabotage? If a previously exceptional employee stops being exceptional right after you stressed them out is it because they are being stroppy or because they are stressed and can't perform? Do not piss off your programmers. They can sink your boat either because they are stressed out and can't perform or even just because they are pissed off. If your company policies involve pissing off your programmers, you are in a pile of trouble. The real answer to this guys question is: If you can't fix your policies so that your programmers are happy, then find another job. This one is done.
- malux85 8y ago
  Exactly! It made me so angry reading this post that they clearly value the engineer and his ideas, but they are unwilling to compensate him - even before the cuts the payouts were very low. Instead of trying to fix the problem, he asks how to squeeze the engineer. Unbelievable. If said engineer is reading this, reach out to me.
Balgair 8y ago
Related: The Elves are Leaving Middle Earth- The Sodas are no Longer Free https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%93-soda%E2%80%99s-are-no-longer-free/ https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear...
- craftinator 8y ago
  Thank you for this, been looking for this article for a long time!
  - Balgair 8y ago
    Anytime!
craftinator 8y ago
Hey, OP, can you tell us the name of the company that you and your very productive and forgetful engineer work at? Just want to make sure I don't accidentally start working there!
ashildr 8y ago
Personally I’d start looking for another job because the upper management does not seem to understand who actually has valuable thoughts or the company is financially so constrained that they have to suffocate people who innovate. Either way, the persepctive is bleak. And im sure the engineer would do the same as soon as someone makes the right offer in terms of payment and location.

389 points by chrisbennet 8y ago

analog31 8y ago

>>> Since employees write these in their spare time... Oops.

kabdib 8y ago
(Asking for legal advice on the Internet. Double oops). There's a point in the application process where you need to affirm, under penalty of perjury, a bunch of legal stuff about the invention. I can see having second thoughts about (say) the prior art landscape, or having sincere doubts that the application teaches something patentable, and refusing to sign. If the potential patents are actually valuable, the cheapest way for the company to realize them is to pay the engineer for his time. The company already sounds like a horrible place to work, and lawsuits against current or former employees are going to send an awesome message to the ranks. Engaging in a suit to force someone to patent an invention is going to get really interesting and expensive. It's also possible that the engineer has been gaming the patent reward system, turning in inventions that are just reworked prior art, or that are not actually very valuable (too narrow or obscure to be interesting, or too broad and risky to use in legal action). 30 patents is a lot, relatively speaking -- perhaps the company realized that it was actually getting low-quality inventions and decided to adjust the compensation accordingly.

robinduckett 8y ago

Yeah this manager guy is an asshole.

dboreham 8y ago
I think idiot would be the better top level designation. So : Idiot asshole.
- convolvatron 8y ago
  i've struggled with these quite a bit over the years. an idiot often ends up being an asshole because they are just incapable of empathizing with other people's perspectives. maybe in this case they think they are just looking out for the companies interest and being extremely short sighted. an asshole, who isn't an idiot, often uses the pretense of idiocy to obfuscate their actions...even worse - as a kind of trolling. given that these behaviors are so often fused, I wonder if it even makes sense to try to tease out whether there is malicious intent.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
kerng 8y ago
I think inexperienced or naive might be better words. He clearly understands the issue, but feels totally not empowered to change anything. At this stage, I'd propose the employee quit and then possibly deliver the work as a consultant for good dollars.

jv22222 8y ago

Anyone know how a patent team might determine the value of a patent?

notyourwork 8y ago
Depends on the patent and the application. Could be stupid simple but save a company 0.01$ per “item” and when you make millions of “item” a year that adds up. So it’s entirely based on how the patent can be applied.
Rebelgecko 8y ago
Where I work, the inventor(s) get a cut of any royalties

pimmen 8y ago

"We offered X dollars for patents, the engineer accepted that price. We now want the patents for X-Y dollars, the engineer doesn't accept this price. I have no idea how to negotiate and I would like to strongarm him instead. Help me!"

chrisbennet 8y ago
I up-voted you but I suspect that the manager has little say over the aspects of the situation that would help retain the engineer. Some bean counter has determined that they can save money by not paying for something they used to pay for - and its working. They are paying less (which is all the bean counter cares about). They fact that they are getting less or costing the company is not his problem.
- pimmen 8y ago
  Yeah, I suspect the OP is caught between a rock and a hard place. I know very little about the situation from what's given in the Stackexchange post, but this is how I imagine it; The OP has had no say over this policy at all, and is actually pretty powerless overall. He/she has no ability to give out titles, perks, bonuses, promotions or anything really. Still the position of the OP entails being a link between senior management and the actual engineers, so the OP is the only one in management who actually sees this engineer's work ethic, creativity and problem solving. The few times this engineer has been in contact with senior management the engineer has pushed back their requests for him to just give up whatever work's been done, which doesn't work because the engineer barely knows who the f they are. So the senior management now asks the OP to fix it, but grants almost no authority to do anything. The senior management would like this situation to end in a situation where they don't have to roll back whatever policies they implemented, or treat people in special ways just to get what they already believe is rightfully theirs, and if this doesn't go well they want to blame someone lower for the mess.

UncleEntity 8y ago

Wait, so the engineer came up with an idea in their spare time, demo'd it to the bosses then decided that it wasn't worth it to follow up on the idea in their spare time but now they want to somehow force them to turn it over after apparently deleting all evidence of it? I don't actually know what to think about this (and I'm a big fan of absurdity) but suspect there's some hidden moral to this story...

dboreham 8y ago
There's a whole legal theory behind what's discussed in the OP : patent rights get assigned to employer by employee under terms of their employment agreement, subject to whatever laws pertain under the relevant jurisdiction (e.g. California is probably different). The $1000 bonus thing has a legal purpose to beef up the employer's rights to the IP, since under law the rights accrue to the inventor not the employer. And on and on. So this manager is a clueless idiot who needs some schooling in the law and the various risks he is running in taking the action he's taken. Ianal, but...seriously..if you're an engineering manager you should know this stuff to some level.
- notyourday 8y ago
  Would a $0.01 bonus be sufficient to beef up employer's right to the IP?

cygned 8y ago

> His employment agreement states that any and all intellectual property he generates while employed with us, even during weekends/free-time, is the property of the company. If I had such a clause in a contract, I would turn down the opportunity. Maybe I am missing something obvious here, but I don't see the point of this. Even worse, this: > any and all intellectual property sounds to me like one couldn't do anything creative in their spare time. Even a picture painted would belong to their employer.

syshum 8y ago
Unfortunately it is a standard boilerplate in many Employment Agreements in the US. Over broad terms written by contract lawyers completely one sided. Fortunately most of the time if the employer is stupid enough to sue for non-work related IP many courts will toss the case and render the clause void in the agreement. However there have been a few bad rulings as well. I remember on case where the employer sued an employee over a book they wrote after the book was successful, the employer happened to be having financial problems... If I remember correctly the judge ruled in favor of the employer
- xkcd-sucks 8y ago
  >Unfortunately it is a standard boilerplate in many Employment Agreements in the US. Every organization says it wants to be exceptional, except where it comes to employee rights and compensation. Then it's "sorry but this is just how everyone does it", e.g. "you can't get b tyer treatment elsewhere"
- mcguire 8y ago
  Do you remember the book? Was it related to the area of employment?
  - syshum 8y ago
    I dont, it was several years ago that I read the analysis in an obscure publication, if I recall it was not related to employment, it was a work of fiction and the guy worked as a engineer or some other profession close to that

UseStrict 8y ago

Upper management probably all patted themselves on the back after cutting the payouts. They'll tout that they "saved the company thousands, every year." In most industries innovation is key, cutting engineer pay for what is essentially voluntary work is setting themselves up for obsoletion in the near future. I don't blame the guy for "not remembering" what his boss was talking about.

JackFr 8y ago
I imagine that someone looked at the program and saw it as largely a waste of money -- that it's unlikely that the patents being churned out at 2-3 a week, as IP were not worth the money they were paying for them, and a side-door bonus for engineering staff, they were not the most efficient means to talent retention & compensation. It seems the better solution might have been to tighten up the review process -- keep the money the same but accept fewer. If the individual contributor in question was really as good as reported, he would have been untouched.
- make3 8y ago
  this is the solution for sure. Having been through the patent process myself, I can't imagine what sort of BS patents they were churning out for an engineer to be able to have 2-3 a week. Making them conditional to review would have really improved on this
  - jpatokal 8y ago
    That's 2-3 a week across the entire company (of unknown size), not a single engineer.
  - Majromax 8y ago
    > I can't imagine what sort of BS patents they were churning out for an engineer to be able to have 2-3 a week. I interpret that part of the question as the program as a whole seeing 2-3 patents per week, spread over the entire engineering team. The employee in question produced 30 patents over two years -- still an astonishing rate, but evidently worthwhile because 'all of these inventions are used in our products'.

anoncake 8y ago

> IT has searched his OneDrive, laptop, etc., and we can't find a single shred of code/documentation on these ideas. A smart engineer is not stupid. Who knew?

the_arun 8y ago
I smell serious Privacy concern just in this statement. Could company do that? I wonder why that engineer still working for that company if he is so good & company is playing all these tricks.
- brown9-2 8y ago
  Are you asking if the company can search the company’s property?
  - gervase 8y ago
    I took the parent question to be asking about where the (personal privacy) line falls: - Can an employer search a personal laptop (BYOD)? - What about a personal Dropbox account? Personal emails? What if they are only in the cloud, and not on the device? - Do these answers change if there are logs showing these services were accessed with a company device during work hours? - Could they look in his personal laptop bag if they suspected he had a USB drive with the information inside? These are generally very locality-specific and dependent on the various employment agreements, codes of conduct, etc. that the employee signed, so in general it's not very informative to speculate on where those lines are drawn. However, I do think these are useful questions that any employee should be able to answer for themselves about their own current employer, if only so that they're cognizant of their rights.
- mhuffman 8y ago
  A lot of your privacy goes away as an employee! You will notice here[1] for example, that cameras can be put in workplace bathrooms in many states. All of your work accounts and work hardware belong to the company and it is your problem if you put personal information on them. [1] https://www.upcounsel.com/video-surveillance-laws-by-state https://www.upcounsel.com/video-surveillance-laws-by-state

jknoepfler 8y ago

money will not fix this situation. if you breach trust once over compensation, you lose all goodwill from your staff. your talented staff will leave immediately. there's nothing to be done to fix it, full stop. the literal second a company begins curtailing engineer benefits they transition from a forward moving company to a fungibility-fest maintenance mode enterprise

ngngngng 8y ago
Well said. I started my dream job 1 year ago. 6 months ago we were purchased and our benefits were all cut. I've lost over 50% of my team, we can't hire new people. I still have very interesting engineering problems to solve, but I feel cheated out of what I signed up for.
- marton78 8y ago
  Your dream job is no more. Your should leave, too.
  - ngngngng 8y ago
    I know, i've been casually looking. I'm just so determined to make a large salary leap on my next job and find somewhere I can stay for a few years (that's what I thought I had with the current job before things changed). Because of this i'm taking my time looking because my resume only gets better by the day with what I do currently.
- Washuu 8y ago
  Similar story here. Company was purchased recently, new health benefits are messing people up, and most of the staff lost anywhere from 20% to 60% of their compensation. I am trying to move on, but I can not solve data structures/algorithms on white boards with people staring over my shoulder. :|
  - aitchnyu 8y ago
    My interviewees wrote code by hand, but on a paper on a desk, seated opposite me. Surely you can ask for this less stressful alternative?

stevebmark 8y ago

I can't imagine being as narcissistic as some of the devs replying here. Have none of you really worked at a company that introduced an overly ambitious rewards program and had to dial it back? He filed 30 "successful" patents? He was gaming the system to get above market pay. If you think someone came up with 30 truly novel and useful software patents in 2 years you might not have read enough software patents. They didn't "screw" him, the company made a responsible decision to cut back on leaking money. It looks like they've offered him more than generous compensation for the work after the change. I bet this asshole developer isn't leaving because he can't find anyone who will pay him this absurd rate on par with the system he was gaming. He's really complaining that he can only make more money be being promoted? Has he worked in software before? Clearly he's never been in a management/leadership position where he actually has to balance the concerns of the company with his own ego.

crb002 8y ago
30 accepted patents is impressive regardless of cashflow for them. Perhaps put him on the legal team editing patents? Leverage what he loves.
- ska 8y ago
  submitted vs. accepted is a long and twisty path ... if were are talking 2 years here most or all of them will not have been reviewed yet.
chrisbennet 8y ago
Then the company shouldn't mind not getting the patents. After all, they really aren't worth that much right? Everyone's happy, well everyone but this manager.
- stevebmark 8y ago
  Read. They need the work, not the patent. You know, the thing they're paid to do as an engineer. It doesn't matter if they did it on their own time voluntarily, it obviously belongs to the company. It's the engineer's own fault if they did it on personal time to keep trying to game the system (even after being offered 25k, jesus).

the_arun 8y ago

Reminds me of this story - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goose_That_Laid_the_Golden_Eggs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goose_That_Laid_the_Golden...

CalChris 8y ago

If this were a salesperson and they reduced commissions, would it surprise anyone that motivations were also reduced? If management thinks these patents are worth less, a reasonable position, then they should file fewer of them. Indeed the cost of patent prosecution is significantly greater than the engineer's patent compensation. Raise the filing bar; that'll save some money. But if they lower patent compensation, they have to understand that it will also lower motivation.

stygiansonic 8y ago
Indeed, if they lowered patent compensation they are explicitly signaling that it is of less value and importance. The fact that this engineer doesn’t want to contribute anymore lines up with that.

z3t4 8y ago

When military clears buildings they leave a way for the enemy to exit ...

cashsterling 8y ago

Not a lawyer. From past start-up legal experience... it depends on the state. In some/many states, an employer unilaterally changing compensation for a portion of an employment agreement, without asking employees to resign an updated contract, would render those portions of the agreement null and void. Some states have employment laws against certain non-compete and [iirc] blanket IP assignment clauses. In those states, even if employees sign to those clauses, they are still void according to state law.

ringaroll 8y ago

This should be expected. You screwed the guy, you got screwed in return. Be happy that he has not yet left and offer him $300k - $400k as a bonus if that work is so important. > IT has searched his OneDrive, laptop, etc., and we can't find a single shred of code/documentation on these ideas. Ahahah. Is anyone surprised that a smart engineer knows what he is doing?

salawat 8y ago

An Engineer is not bound to produce squat for you outside of what you ask him to during his work hours. I encourage most junior devs to keep their projects to themselves in fact. Weaponization of patents ethically demands it. From reading about said company's treatment of this engineer in particular, they are simply reaping what they've sown. Marginalize your engineers, or try to catch them out with legal maneuvering (which is what most employment contracts now are intended as) when you first hire them to hedge your bets at being able to claim something down the line, and this is what you get. Edward Demmings says one of the keys to Quality is to maintain and foster An environment in which the craftsman's pride in his work can flourish. Blanket claims to IP and marginalized patents are not that.

usrusr 8y ago
> An Engineer is not bound to produce squat for you outside of what you ask him to during his work hours. But there was already a presentation. A court favorable of the employer could easily regard that as an implicit promise to provide what was presented, off-hours or not.

_cs2017_ 8y ago

> This engineer has filed over 30 successful patents over the past 2 years, and all of these inventions are used in our products. From my limited experience, typical software patents are either ideas that might (if you're very optimistic) be useful in the future, or descriptions of an approach that everyone already kinda knows. The only purpose they serve is to create a legal weapon to use in patent lawsuits or counter lawsuits. None of the ones I've seen would improve performance or functionality of any product at the time they were written. Writing 30 patents in two years that actually improved a product seems to me beyond hard. Invented by a single engineer rather than a team, doing it in their spare time, only adds to my degree of disbelief. Has anyone seen examples of such productivity that you could share? Since all patents are public, an inventor's name would suffice.

kuroguro 8y ago
I don't think it's mentioned anywhere that they are software patents. Might be a hardware engineer.
- _cs2017_ 8y ago
  They were searching the engineer's laptop for the code, so I assumed those were software patents. But maybe there's a decent amount of code even in a hardware patent?
- NikkiA 8y ago
  To me they were described in a way that I assumed we were talking about process patents, which could be software, hardware, and even just plain ordering of how parts of the process are done.
JackFr 8y ago
My company just started promoting such a policy, and a guy on the business side mentioned filing a patent for some software I had written. Now the work is subtle and nontrivial, but in terms of its novelty, it might be worthwhile as a lightning talk at a meetup, and I can't see it as patentable. It's all known techniques. Another person at the company assures me that this is very patentable, but maybe I just don't get it.

melonakos 8y ago

The employer is horrific. Leave. Yesterday.

a-dub 8y ago

This is silly, and case in point why the California statute should be federal law.

olliej 8y ago

The standard employment contract in us tech is basically: if you do it on company time, or use company property, equipment, or anything paid for by the company it belongs to them - you would almost certainly be in breach of contract if you refused to disclose. Now even if you didn’t use any company resources, most contracts provide at the very least the right for your company to use any IP you develop, even in your off time, even without any of their resources. Your contract in all likelihood would give them actual ownership of the IP. You could choose not to tell them about this IP, and I believe you would be fine, as long as you never used or published it - even after termination of employment - because not being required to disclose the IP does not change ownership - it belongs to the company, even if the company does not know about it. Source: going over job offers+contracts with a lawyer

CalChris 8y ago
Getting legalistic about this would only lead to an even worse outcome than reducing compensation. Getting legalistic is from the beatings will continue until morale improves management school. Instead, management needs to understand that the engineer has a point.
repsilat 8y ago
> on company time, or use company property, equipment, or anything paid for by the company Mine have also said "relating to the company's business" which I imagine (IANAL) can make a lot of programming projects difficult, and I guess might make a lot of non-programming hobbies difficult if you work for a BigCo -- creative media, "things on the internet" etc etc. And not a line you want to even walk close to IMO with companies of that size.
- reboog711 8y ago
  > "relating to the company's business" The company I work for also has this. The company is a big entertainment conglomerate. I'm unclear what businesses the company is not in; but most of the things I do in my spare time include--songwriting, book publishing, blog writing--could classify as things the company also does. My `exclusion` clause was over 1 page long and I spent quite a bit of money on a lawyer to put it together.

trhway 8y ago

> IT has searched his OneDrive, laptop, etc., and we can't find a single shred of code/documentation on these ideas. neural implants cant come too early. >I've tried offering a one-off bonus for him to just anonymously leave a thumb drive with the data on my desk after hours, but he just claims he "doesn't know what I'm talking about". the engineer is smart while the manager doesn't seem so if he really thought that the engineer would walk into that trap. > and even an offer of $25,000.00 for the IP didn't work, which would have been according to the "old rules". I think he's worried that by agreeing to such a deal, he's opening himself up to legal liability (it would involve indirectly admitting he was being dicey/dishonest about "not knowing what I'm talking about") Definitely a Fisher/Spassky level of managerial thinking. Only at this game the rooks aren't sacrificed, they are shafted.

dejaime 8y ago

"Oh No! This innovation program is bringing too many good results! Better dial it down a little..."

stagger87 8y ago
Let's be real, the quality of patents generated in programs like this are very low. A good patent is worth more than 5k.

shmerl 8y ago

The company shouldn't encourage filing software patents.

ummonk 8y ago

One of the many benefits of being in California is that work that you do in your own free time with your own resources legally belongs to you. I’m not sure what would happen in the state this engineer is in on the other hand. Of course, they can’t force him to complete and deliver work he did in his own free time but I’m not sure whether he would be able to reuse it or file a patent himself.

OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago

> The company has recently decided to dial back the benefits for this program, to a simple $100 YOUR COMPANY IS CLEARLY IN THE WRONG. TRY NOT FUCKING OVER EMPLOYEES.

umvi 8y ago

My company pays peanuts for patents. Something like $50 plus a name on a plaque. I might have filed patents for $5000 a pop, but for $50 it's not even worth the effort.

gbrown_ 8y ago

> I think he's getting ready to switch jobs, and we need the technical information/code he used to create the demo. This irks me, it's not explained or alluded to why this is needed, surely this should be wanted?

usrusr 8y ago
Already sold to customers down the chain, who sold it to theirs? If it's that kind of pants down situation I guess that the engineer in question will stay just long enough to watch the drama play out.

ris 8y ago

This company's "patent program" is everything that's wrong with the patent system. Patents are (well, were) intended to protect critical parts of work, not to be farmed for building up a war chest.

hpcjoe 8y ago

A bunch of things about this I've not seen discussed in detail, and they are important. What we know: 1) The company changed the compensation model for patents, and now have lost contribution from one of their most prolific users of that model. 2) The manager is concerned that the employee is going to leave. And then the IP will be effectively lost to the employer. 3) Based upon #2, they have engaged a significant hunt for information, looking through his data storage, his laptop, etc. At likely fairly significant expenditure of time/effort/personnel who should be engaged in other tasks. That is, the company is paying real money for the opportunity cost associated with their screwing up their policy. They are paying time and materials, resources, consultants, etc. to try to find something that is not likely findable. They are apparently ok with this use of capital. They are apparently less ok with paying what their engineer considered a fair market compensation for their effort. At some point, possibly already, they will have spent more money on the search and recovery effort than they would have paid the engineer. 4) Somehow the manager is of the opinion that the employee does not want to "admit" that they are "lying". What we don't know: 1) The value of the previously patented work. You can get a glimmer of the thought processes by noting that the manager focused on the volume and not the quality of the work, by counting. You can get a sense of disbelief in high quality from the comments here. So we don't know if this senior engineer was putting out good product, figured out a way to game a broken system and no longer wishes to play. I am going to assume the senior engineer put out a good product and patent set. Such that the company was willing to prosecute patent filings, and saw value in them. So much so, that when they broke their standing rate on compensation for voluntary work, they decided to spend real capital pursuing this voluntary work. 2) whether or not this engineer is really looking for a new job. Well, put another way, whether or not they were looking for a new job ... yet. Likely they'll catch on from StackExchange, see their manager post, realize that they need to git while the gitting is good. 3) whether or not this manager has communicated this to senior management, whether or not this person has decision or negotiation authority to solve this. Chances are, they do within specific boundaries. So ... A few obvious thoughts: 1) the company policy change is idiotic. Their pursuit of IP across the systems suggests that they realize that they messed up something fierce. 2) By the managers own admission, they badly broke trust with the employee, not only by reducing potential compensation, but then further by rooting through the employee's systems. Yes, they have a right to do this. They are likely not breaking any laws. But they broke trust in (at least 2) major ways. 3) If the IP is potentially really valuable to the company, as in material to their bottom line as a whole, or in a competitive stance, chances are the employee is very well aware of this. And they know that the old compensation model, the one they were using, wouldn't be of sufficient value to themselves for the value it would bring the company. Which means that this is still a negotiation, and no one has seemingly asked the basic question of "what would it take for you to recall and rediscover this work?" Given the breach of trust, this negotiation tactic may not work. But given that the employee appears to be a fairly smart cookie, they will likely play this to maximize their benefit. 4) The manager seems unable or unwilling to come to terms with changes they need to make in order to get this guy the comp he wants. This is a solvable problem with the right management, and the right managerial attitude. If you can't promote him because your rules don't allow this, and you think he is a valuable team member, and a promotion would help shake up his memory ... hey, this is solvable. It is left as an exercise for the student, but hint, if the rules are problematic ... It seems to me that their are a number of potential solutions to this, none of which require people to admit to lying, or allowing them to be accused of lying. The company simply has to decide how important this IP is to them, to decide what changes they should make. At minimum, this manager sounds like they are not a keeper.

tntn 8y ago

So I know the ownership of IP produced on an engineer's own time is pretty dicey (even in California, where it depends on whether the work is in the same field as the company, or something), and most of the time employers seem to have some claim to ownership over all work done by their employees. And yet loads of people employed by companies work on open source software, write blogs, work on their own stuff, etc and companies don't seem to get involved. So what's the situation here? Is it something like companies legally may be able to assert ownership over work down by employees of their own volition on their own time with their own equipment, but mostly choose not to bother with it? Assume I have an "ordinary" contract in the USA. Would I need to worry about this if I wanted to write stuff on a blog, assuming it isn't directly related to work I do? (I understand that if it really matters I should talk to a lawyer, and will not interpret any responses as legal advice, etc. I'm just curious if other professional employers worry about this or just quietly do their own thing)

encoderer 8y ago
Some employers are quite strict, so avoid those (google, famously). Avoid even a hint of crossover with your employer’s business, use your own equipment and time, and work for a successful company that is too busy with its own customers. If some how you make a billion dollars (you won’t) it might be a problem. A million won’t even be noticed.
- Judgmentality 8y ago
  With the exception of Waymo going after Uber (which was a really unusual situation), when has Google gone after previous employees over IP?
peteradio 8y ago
Without these clauses Employers don't have a chance at getting the IP. With these clauses there is at least the opening of a lawsuit. Most are probably not in a position to fight these lawsuits whether or not they'd win in the long run.
duxup 8y ago
>Assume I have an "ordinary" contract in the USA. Would I need to worry about this if I wanted to write stuff on a blog, assuming it isn't directly related to work I do? In the US it is going to depend on the company, but I feel safe in saying "most" companies don't care about such things and largely limit their interest to the work you do directly for them.

duxup 8y ago

Company removes incentives for a employee to do thing(s), and doesn't get thing(s) and is now surprised by result. It's always hard to know but the way this is being described sounds like the person asking the engineer for this information has little to no relationship with this person. That can't be helping. They cut the incentive program that gave him extra money and insist he move to move on his career, they clearly don't belive what he says and I'm sure he has picked up on that. None of this seems like the way you treat a valuable person at the company.

normalperson 8y ago

Baby Boomers are SICK people.

infinity0 8y ago

> His employment agreement states that any and all intellectual property he generates while employed with us, even during weekends/free-time, is the property of the company. This is illegal and unenforceable in many places in the world including the whole EU and California (only stuff done using company resources or relating to company work). I'm surprised at the other comments here that seem to be totally ignorant of this.

blackflame7000 8y ago

In a nutshell, “We want this engineer to continue to bring us value, we just don’t want to pay for it.”

darkout 8y ago

So many red flags in a single thread.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

usrusr 8y ago

So the engineer knows his game theory instincts: offer me a price I will accept or no deal, no matter how much you increase your offer later on. In this case, it was particularly easy/insulting, because they already knew a reasonable price he would have accepted. That IP is gone.

0_gravitas 8y ago

How is this IP stuff not considered a massive violation of privacy?

jacknews 8y ago

Regardless of the legal situation, this is a pretty shabby way to treat an employee. While the bonus was good, he contributed patents. How much did the company profit from those? Quite a bit more than you paid in bonus, I'll wager. And now you've cut the bonus, but still expect (and seem to be trying to force) the employee to continue contributing in his spare time? Sheesh.

ezoe 8y ago

>His employment agreement states that any and all intellectual property he generates while employed with us, even during weekends/free-time, is the property of the company. Seriously. That cannot be worked in my country. This line alone indicates that this employer is evil.

brogrammernot 8y ago

I wish I knew was company this was so I could blacklist them from any future contact. @OP, upper management fucked up majorly and if I were you I’d be looking to leave as well. Everything you’ve said makes them seem like complete assholes who said “fuck the culture” and opted for profits over people. What should you do? Tell the guy in person that he should leave, take the patented material with him and don’t look back. The company has had to have made more than 110k off his parents, and this is such an infuriating question to be asking.

duado 8y ago

I’m reminded of the quip, “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”

mikekchar 8y ago

Rule number one: don't piss off your programmers. Programmers produce things that are largely unintelligible to management. The whole reason we have arguments about processes is because we can't measure the productivity of our programmers. It's difficult to even measure the quality of the work without getting other programmers involved. Even if there is a serious bug, how do you determine if it's due to bad luck, sloppy coding or sabotage? If a previously exceptional employee stops being exceptional right after you stressed them out is it because they are being stroppy or because they are stressed and can't perform? Do not piss off your programmers. They can sink your boat either because they are stressed out and can't perform or even just because they are pissed off. If your company policies involve pissing off your programmers, you are in a pile of trouble. The real answer to this guys question is: If you can't fix your policies so that your programmers are happy, then find another job. This one is done.

malux85 8y ago
Exactly! It made me so angry reading this post that they clearly value the engineer and his ideas, but they are unwilling to compensate him - even before the cuts the payouts were very low. Instead of trying to fix the problem, he asks how to squeeze the engineer. Unbelievable. If said engineer is reading this, reach out to me.

Balgair 8y ago

Related: The Elves are Leaving Middle Earth- The Sodas are no Longer Free https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%93-soda%E2%80%99s-are-no-longer-free/ https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear...

craftinator 8y ago
Thank you for this, been looking for this article for a long time!
- Balgair 8y ago
  Anytime!

craftinator 8y ago

Hey, OP, can you tell us the name of the company that you and your very productive and forgetful engineer work at? Just want to make sure I don't accidentally start working there!

ashildr 8y ago

Personally I’d start looking for another job because the upper management does not seem to understand who actually has valuable thoughts or the company is financially so constrained that they have to suffocate people who innovate. Either way, the persepctive is bleak. And im sure the engineer would do the same as soon as someone makes the right offer in terms of payment and location.