California Labor Code section 2870[1] states: > (a) Any provision in an employment agreement which provides that an employee shall assign, or offer to assign,

California Labor Code section 2870[1] states: > (a) Any provision in an employment agreement which provides that an employee shall assign, or offer to assign, any of his or her rights in an invention to his or her employer shall not apply to an invention that the employee developed entirely on his or her own time without using the employer’s equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secret information except for those inventions that either: > (1) Relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer’s business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer; or > (2) Result from any work performed by the employee for the employer. > (b) To the extent a provision in an employment agreement purports to require an employee to assign an invention otherwise excluded from being required to be assigned under subdivision (a), the provision is against the public policy of this state and is unenforceable. Large companies like Apple and Google get away with broad rules that effectively ban unapproved open source contributions because nearly every type of software can be said to "Relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer’s business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer". If you work at a small company in California, I suggest pushing back on any rules like that. At my current company the employment contract they initially sent me required me to notify them in writing every time I created any work I felt was protected by section 2870 (any personal open source, any music, any writing, anything that could have a copyright). I had that paragraph removed from the contract. The burden should be on the company to enforce their copyright ownership, and provide evidence of ownership, the burden shouldn't be on me. [1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=2870.&lawCode=LAB https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...