3 ms·

This is great, Thank You! "which relate to, or are reasonably capable of being used in, the business of the Company or any Group Company" sounds like a good ph

by _odey 5y ago

This is great, Thank You! "which relate to, or are reasonably capable of being used in, the business of the Company or any Group Company" sounds like a good phrasing to me, especially the "business" part of it as I interpret it to be the company simply wanting you to not build a competing product while employed there (a fair thing to have in a contract). For reference, this is what my last contract had: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24220800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24220800 (notably 13.4 (c)) How I see it, "whether or not during working hours or using Company premises or resources" is not problematic here as "or otherwise" was in my block of text since this only refers to the employer's "business" related IP, and not "everything" you create (if your personal work is a stock trading library and your employer sells a booking for dog haircuts SAAS, these won't collide).

Silhouette 5y ago
Please be really careful about that kind of phrasing. If you work for a large organisation, it might be doing work on almost anything somewhere in the org and you might not even know that work exists. And yet now if your own project that is entirely unrelated to your own role and work for the employer can be linked to that other work you didn't even know about, your employer owns everything.
- _odey 5y ago
  Of course, I wouldn't rely only on the employment contract. But this is a good start since this means you didn't sign a document stating "all you do belongs to us no matter what". Personally, at the same time as signing the employment contract, I would create a list of projects I develop/contribute to outside of work with a description and links, and have them sign an acknowledgement these don't interfere with their "business" (and if they refuse to sign simply resign on the spot the same second), whether or not they use them already for business purposes or not, and an obligation for them to notify me if they ever start using one of my projects internally in the future. Also, for open source projects I contribute too that the company uses I'd have a separate paper stating my role in them, and both of our expectation for contributions that are made during/outside of hours, again signed by both parties. For FOSS projects that I own that the company wants to use, I'll have them clearly define my scope in them during employment, have them assign copyright ownership to me for any contribution they want upstreamed, and have every commit with their hashes reviewed and approved by a lead/manager. But as far as I'm concerned, there is no point in doing any of this if the employment contract states they own all my IP, since the documents would contradict one another. That's why cleaning up the mess in the employment contract is such a big deal for me.
throwawayboise 5y ago
> as I interpret it What matters is how a judge will interpret it, if it should become an issue.
- _odey 5y ago
  It definitely matters how I interpret it as I'm one of the parties signing it. The judge comes in when there is a disagreement on the interpretations, which means I have to state what makes my position stand and bring arguments. With a clause that states "the company owns all", I have no arguments I can come up with, but with the one in the post above, I can at least come up with the reson that "it falls outside that clause written here in the contract". It might be, or not be enough, but at least I have one thing I can use to my advantage and not make a fool of myself in court.

by _odey 5y ago

Silhouette 5y ago

Please be really careful about that kind of phrasing. If you work for a large organisation, it might be doing work on almost anything somewhere in the org and you might not even know that work exists. And yet now if your own project that is entirely unrelated to your own role and work for the employer can be linked to that other work you didn't even know about, your employer owns everything.

_odey 5y ago
Of course, I wouldn't rely only on the employment contract. But this is a good start since this means you didn't sign a document stating "all you do belongs to us no matter what". Personally, at the same time as signing the employment contract, I would create a list of projects I develop/contribute to outside of work with a description and links, and have them sign an acknowledgement these don't interfere with their "business" (and if they refuse to sign simply resign on the spot the same second), whether or not they use them already for business purposes or not, and an obligation for them to notify me if they ever start using one of my projects internally in the future. Also, for open source projects I contribute too that the company uses I'd have a separate paper stating my role in them, and both of our expectation for contributions that are made during/outside of hours, again signed by both parties. For FOSS projects that I own that the company wants to use, I'll have them clearly define my scope in them during employment, have them assign copyright ownership to me for any contribution they want upstreamed, and have every commit with their hashes reviewed and approved by a lead/manager. But as far as I'm concerned, there is no point in doing any of this if the employment contract states they own all my IP, since the documents would contradict one another. That's why cleaning up the mess in the employment contract is such a big deal for me.

throwawayboise 5y ago

> as I interpret it What matters is how a judge will interpret it, if it should become an issue.

_odey 5y ago
It definitely matters how I interpret it as I'm one of the parties signing it. The judge comes in when there is a disagreement on the interpretations, which means I have to state what makes my position stand and bring arguments. With a clause that states "the company owns all", I have no arguments I can come up with, but with the one in the post above, I can at least come up with the reson that "it falls outside that clause written here in the contract". It might be, or not be enough, but at least I have one thing I can use to my advantage and not make a fool of myself in court.