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[Disclaimer] I am not a lawyer, this is only from professional experience and personal culture, and may not apply if you are from another planet. Feel free to i
by nmc 13y ago
[Disclaimer] I am not a lawyer, this is only from professional experience and personal culture, and may not apply if you are from another planet. Feel free to insert enough "maybe" for your own convenience.
[TL;DR] This is only enforceable if explicitly written black-on-white in a contract you willingly signed.
I have seen similar clauses in engineering contracts before: this is rare but it exists, and you should beware. I would advise not to sign anything like that — except maybe when you really trust the company's shareholders. At least, make it clear that you do work on your spare time, and show them that it is clearly unrelated.
So check your employment contract. In case it confirms your company's claims, you can still try to go to court: in some cases, a judge may consider that an abusive clause.
Alternatively, there is no chance this is an implicit argument: any IP renunciation must be explicit, so if you never signed anything like that, I think you should be safe.
- jrochkind1 13y agoI have no idea if you are right or not (I'm not a laywer either), but the fact that you provide a clear black and white answer (when the law is often not so black and white), without any citations to background reading or cases supporting your interpretation of the law (so we can learn more about it and verify your interpretation, especially important since you of course aren't a lawyer giving us legal advice), and without assuring the readers that you are indeed familiar with relevant UK law (on a site such as HN where US is often assumed default)... ...makes me a lot less credible. I'm not sure what leads people to ask for legal advice on HN, but hopefully the askers are looking for citations to further background reading on the topic rather than a legal opinion, and are cautious of simply believing everything they read.
- dllthomas 13y agoIt makes them less credible, you less credulous.
- jrochkind1 13y agocredulous, that's the word!
- nmc 13y agoThanks for the advice, I added a disclaimer. I understand the Wikipedian urge to render everything credible by referencing authoritative material, I just did not take the time to do it here. I am confident my advice remains helpful nonetheless. Also, a craving for references can present undesirable effects [1,2]. [1] http://xkcd.com/906/ http://xkcd.com/906/ [2] http://xkcd.com/978/ http://xkcd.com/978/
- jrochkind1 13y agoSo, something I'd personally want to know anyway, since laws often vary between countries, is if your professional and cultural experience in the UK specifically?