Cases of companies taking IP rights of your own personal projects developed outside company time

Question

Hi,

I have heard of cases where a developer working for a company is also making his own personal projects in his own time, using his own equipment yet the company he works for tries to claim ownership for the project. I really find this annoying, and bang out of order. It should also be illegal.

I am in this position (work for a company and working on my own systems - from small class libraries used to practise what I learn in my exam revision to a large commercial-scale system). While I don't know if the company will try to take ownership, all I know is they say they do not want a conflict of interest. Fair enough, my system is developed in my own time using my own equipment. They also say that work time should be for work only, which it is. Funny thing that as work is so boring, easy and slow that I have plenty of free time, which I wish I could spend on something productive - said system. The problem is, my company does not take hiring technical talent seriously. This is my first job, I am a junior coder (but my status/position doesn't really reflect what I can do), but I am the only developer. Likewise with the guy who controls Windows Server. As the contract does not say anything about taking ownership, I would assume they would. They would try to milk my success (I've made a good impression so I am sure they would).

How can this be allowed? Are there any examples of this happening to any fellow Stacker here? It really makes my blood boil.

What I find funny is that my company hardly has the expertise and resources to even be able to successfully run a project of my size. What I do at work is an ASP.NET application consisting of five pages, and even then there are flaws in the project. If I told them that they would also have to take responsibility for flaws in the project, then they would think twice! It's exactly because of this I save the best code for myself and at work I write rubbish code full of code smells. The company don't really care about error handling, as long as the business functionality works (ie a scheduled email sends, but there is no error handling). They'd think twice when they see the embarassment and business cost of a YSOD...

Answer 1

Every employment contract I've ever signed has specifically stated that the company owns whatever I write on company time or on company equipment. It's unlikely that a company could successfully sue for ownership of something developed on your own time and equipment, even if your agreement said they owned it. IANAL, so you never know.

I've managed to avoid any conflicts between my employers and my side projects by not having any successful side projects.

Answer 2

Look at the contract you sign when you accept the job. If you don't like the provisions, don't sign -- either get the terms changed (ask - you never know) or get an exemption for pre-existing work that you plan to continue to develop (reasonable; I've done that with both my last two employers, covering the last 15 years of service), or don't take the job at all.

If you sign a contract saying that anything you produce is theirs for the using, it is. And if they find out about it, they can cause trouble. Don't risk it. Especially not in the USA.

Also look at the non-compete clauses, for during and after your employment.

Answer 3

If you really have what it takes to build something that will fly, and can make money from it, then work for yourself.

Answer 4

If you really have what it takes to build something that will fly, and can make money from it, then work for yourself.

It will be a long time till all my project(s) go live, and then they will have to be promoted in order for them to "fly", so there is no guarantee, even if the analysis says yes there is commercial potential. Also, I need a job to support the system until the system can pay for itself (hosting, hardware, software needs and so forth).

What I build may turn out to have no commercial impact at all, but it will still be a damn good learning exercise. Unlike the stuff I do at work, which is basic code.

Answer 5

My last company asked us to fill out a form describing any "inventions" or works not relating to them which belonged to me before starting with them, so I listed a few incomplete projects that I wanted to retain ownership of.

Generally, not bringing it up until after you leave will be fine, unless you're releasing to the public before you leave the company. In that case, you should probably run it by an attorney. However, if you wait until you leave the company, the likelihood that they will 1) notice or 2) be able to prove that you worked on it under their auspices, is extremely small.

Answer 6

I think generally it's a bit like the police being allowed to arrest you if you have the keys to your car and you've had a few too many too drink. They wouldn't arrest 99% of people who are in that situation if they really are just asleep on their back seat, but for the 1% that are about to drink-drive, having the law there allows them to make a judgement call with some authority.

Similarly, developing stuff for profit in your own time is probably fine with most companies (even those who specify terms in your contract). The clause is there so that if you take something that you developed in work time and tried to sell it, they'd have a leg to stand on. Like if you made toothpaste for your day job and started making some miraculous teeth-cleaning sweets, they'd probably have grounds to take your research. If you were working for the same company and developing letter-openers for squirrels, you'd probably find they had no issue with it (assuming you did the development on your own time and it didn't interfere with your day job of course!).

From the sounds of things though, you could usefully employ your spare work-time improving the things like error checking you say they don't care about. The fact that they "don't care about bug checking" in my experience generally means they've only had people working for them that will do the bare minimum. I would say it's down to you to turn this around and prove to them how much more they could get out of it all! I've a feeling that if you can do that, you'll suddenly find yourself considerably more engaged with your projects in your day job!

Overall, if you're still set on extra work, the best way to be sure is to ask them if it's okay :-)