3 ms·

I find the idea of bringing a personal project into the office and having a committee decide whether I own it or not, to be rather distasteful. The obvious cou

• rxin 15y ago
  Often is it hard to justify whether you completely own the IP. For example, you could've used the company resource to respond to an email related to your personal project. Or some ideas for your personal project might've been influenced by your day work. Rather than delaying this type of problems till later stage, it is easier to just resolve such issues explicitly.
• MattLaroche 15y ago
  It's about avoiding situations where your work and your personal life are in conflict ("conflict of interest") and many employers ask you to sign such a thing. If you're not working on something similar to what the employer is working on, it's not a problem. If you're working on something that will compete with what your employer is doing, there's a problem. If you were running a sports team, you wouldn't let your employees run a betting parlor - they'd have too much incentive to throw a game and profit off it. In the same way, employers don't want their employees having situations where the company's goals and the employee's goals are at odds.
  • dstein 15y ago
    If you're not working on something similar to what the employer is working on, it's not a problem. Depends on the contract you sign. A lot of employers demand their employees automatically sign over all invention rights (past and future), and then have a process to (maybe) give your rights back -- and it sounds like this is how Google approaches it.