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My last job basically forbade my working on anything on my own time, and claimed to own all ip I produced during my employment at any time during that employmen

My last job basically forbade my working on anything on my own time, and claimed to own all ip I produced during my employment at any time during that employment. If I wrote a love letter to my wife, they would have owned it. It was a great job with some amazing people, but that part felt really lousy

MattPalmer1086 6y ago
I always try to get those clauses removed, but I'm not always successful. One time a company I worked for used some of my personal code in their product, with my permission. When they merged with another company, the lawyers tried to take ownership of it. I pointed out that my contract was different to the standard contract and they had no claim. They then came back saying that I had to assume any liability they might face for using it. I demurred and said they were free to remove my code if they had any concerns. They kept the code. What I learned from this is that even if you trust the people and the organisation you work with, you have to protect your work. The lawyers were just doing their job in the merger.
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  > They then came back saying that I had to assume any liability they might face for using it. That's a fairly scary consequence of not using a standard Free and Open Source software licence. As you made a special arrangement to permit them to use the code, I presume your code wasn't already publicly available under a standard copycenter licence?
  - MattPalmer1086 6y ago
    That's right, the code was not open source, it was shareware. In those days, I either wasn't aware, or there weren't widely available and understood licenses you could use. I agree that this was a scary consequence of making my software available. I paid a lot more attention to licensing after that experience, and I now use standard open source licenses to protect myself as well as the work.
arnonejoe 6y ago
Why would you ever do that? Just red line the employment agreement. If they wont agree to your changes keep looking. If you live in CA at least you have some protections via labor code 2870-2872. https://www.stimmel-law.com/en/articles/who-owns-employees-inventions-made-home https://www.stimmel-law.com/en/articles/who-owns-employees-i...
- gibolt 6y ago
  Thanks for the link! I'm the situation right now with a new contract; a reminder for them that it doesn't pass muster is extra ammunition to get it removed
alexchamberlain 6y ago
IANAL, but my understanding is that those clauses are basically unenforceable in the EU, UK and California - ofc,there are a lot of caveats to that though.
- MattPalmer1086 6y ago
  I recently took legal advice on a technically unenforceable clause in a contract. I was told that I would probably win, but it would take a year or two to resolve and I would almost certainly not gain anything financially after legal costs, and I stood a chance of losing money I could not afford to lose. So terms don't have to be strictly "enforeceable" to have the desired effect from the company's perspective.

MattPalmer1086 6y ago

I always try to get those clauses removed, but I'm not always successful. One time a company I worked for used some of my personal code in their product, with my permission. When they merged with another company, the lawyers tried to take ownership of it. I pointed out that my contract was different to the standard contract and they had no claim. They then came back saying that I had to assume any liability they might face for using it. I demurred and said they were free to remove my code if they had any concerns. They kept the code. What I learned from this is that even if you trust the people and the organisation you work with, you have to protect your work. The lawyers were just doing their job in the merger.

MaxBarraclough 6y ago
> They then came back saying that I had to assume any liability they might face for using it. That's a fairly scary consequence of not using a standard Free and Open Source software licence. As you made a special arrangement to permit them to use the code, I presume your code wasn't already publicly available under a standard copycenter licence?
- MattPalmer1086 6y ago
  That's right, the code was not open source, it was shareware. In those days, I either wasn't aware, or there weren't widely available and understood licenses you could use. I agree that this was a scary consequence of making my software available. I paid a lot more attention to licensing after that experience, and I now use standard open source licenses to protect myself as well as the work.

arnonejoe 6y ago

Why would you ever do that? Just red line the employment agreement. If they wont agree to your changes keep looking. If you live in CA at least you have some protections via labor code 2870-2872. https://www.stimmel-law.com/en/articles/who-owns-employees-inventions-made-home https://www.stimmel-law.com/en/articles/who-owns-employees-i...

gibolt 6y ago
Thanks for the link! I'm the situation right now with a new contract; a reminder for them that it doesn't pass muster is extra ammunition to get it removed

alexchamberlain 6y ago

IANAL, but my understanding is that those clauses are basically unenforceable in the EU, UK and California - ofc,there are a lot of caveats to that though.

MattPalmer1086 6y ago
I recently took legal advice on a technically unenforceable clause in a contract. I was told that I would probably win, but it would take a year or two to resolve and I would almost certainly not gain anything financially after legal costs, and I stood a chance of losing money I could not afford to lose. So terms don't have to be strictly "enforeceable" to have the desired effect from the company's perspective.