I remember at one of my first jobs, myself and another programmer were working on a side project (outside of work hours, not using company resources in any way) that were considering monetising. Our contracts stated that the company we worked for owned all of our code produced in and out of working hours.
We got to the business end of the project and decided to consult our workplace to find out how strict they were on this. The conversation with HR went something like this:
> Us: Oh hey there, can you clarify clauses X/Y/Z in our contracts regarding ownership of code. We are working on a project we are planning on monetising at some stage and we need to know if the company is going to do anything about this. Our project has no conflicts of interest and we haven't stolen any IP of the company.
> HR: Oh... We've never had a question like this before... We can't say exactly. We'd have to consult our lawyers.
> Us: Cool - can you consult them and let us know what they say, please?
> HR: Sorry, we can't consult them as they charge by the minute and it's too expensive to warrant a conversation with them.
> Us: So... you're not going to answer our question.
> HR: Exactly. You'll have to do it at your own risk.