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GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

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Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#231

Post by cellis »

reallydattrue wrote: post #25

Can someone please clarify this for me. An employer is paying six figures to an employee. In exchange for said salary, employee works set hours and within that time, is supposed to work for the employer and anything they create within that period is owned by the employer. However, in the comments. It seems like everyone wants their cake and eat it too? Which is to say, if I'm working for you between the contracted ho…

There's lots of problems with this line of thinking. One, it encourages "butt-in-seat" thinking, which is inefficient. If I deliver what you wanted delivered in the time allotted, I should be free to work on whatever I want. Of course, a manager wants to squeeze every drop, so if you've finished they'll say "I have some more work for you". But best believe you'll never be fairly compensated for that work ( at most companies anyways. Obviously if the company is Facebook/Google you can have a massive impact and will be flying around to work on whatever suits your fancy ).

Look at it from a contractor's point of view: a contractor will have many other things that they can deliver and make money from, so adding a bit of polish to your project vs delivering another client's makes less sense.

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#232

Post by jameslk »

From the article:

> As long as the work isn’t related to GitHub’s own “existing or prospective” products and services, the employee owns it.

It's strange this statement isn't getting much attention. This sounds like one of those catch-all type of clauses which allows Github to go in any direction they want and potentially still claim your work is their IP in the future. I'd have to read the contract to be sure, of course.

Whether they would do that is another matter. Probably not. Maybe another company that adopts similar policies would though.

If you're going to be building a company while working at another, I think it's more safe to just use your own time and property so there is definitely no claim (assuming your contract doesn't have one of those nasty clauses saying the company owns everything you work on while employed with them).

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#233

Post by matchagaucho »

When I was an employee at Salesforce.com, their legal department claimed my pre-existing AppExchange app potentially conflicted with their future product roadmap and asked me to relinquish ownership of the app within 90 days.

My Lawyer advised me that a "fire sale" of the assets would make Salesforce liable for the difference in devaluation. So I stood my ground and kept the IP.

Claiming prior art as competitive is a different stance than claiming ownership, but it ultimately resulted in terminating the relationship.

The irony was that I drank the Salesforce start-up Kool-Aid and developed the IP on their platform prior to joining.

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#234

Post by _ao789 »

strictnein wrote: post #224
shawnee_ wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The result is that contract forms have become a sort of IP-free zone. Exactly. One of the sleaziest tricks used by Realtors (most Realtors are not lawyers) is getting clients to sign their forms: their terms usually have the word "percent" hard-coded into the contract. Rather than opening the door to hourly or fixed dollar amounts, they insist that their forms are the "standard". I heard one recently say in a public…

Every time I buy or sell a home, I'm very thankful that one of my friends has a realtor's license. None of that 7% BS. None of the dumb games they play. How it came about that the services of two realtors was worth $35k on a $500k home is beyond me. Especially in this day and age, where we all just look online and tell our realtors what houses we want to go to. Half the work they used to do is now done by the client.

I completely agree with you on this sentiment. I've often been quite disenfranchised by this whole palaver around financial reward around realestate percentages... From your wording it sounds like you frequently buy/sell houses.. Or is this just me reading into things?

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#235

Post by CobrastanJorji »

js2 wrote: post #200
shawnee_ wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The result is that contract forms have become a sort of IP-free zone. Exactly. One of the sleaziest tricks used by Realtors (most Realtors are not lawyers) is getting clients to sign their forms: their terms usually have the word "percent" hard-coded into the contract. Rather than opening the door to hourly or fixed dollar amounts, they insist that their forms are the "standard". I heard one recently say in a public…

Nit: one fell swoop. It's from Macbeth.

Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#236

Post by DannyBee »

gcb0 wrote: post #124

wait. wasn't that the law in California already? or am I thinking of non competes?

Not if you use company resources. But otherwise, it looks close.

Note, IME, employees have a very very very different viewpoint of what the company's business is than the company.

Google has a fairly simple (IE takes < 1 week, approves 90%+ of requests) for releasing IP in the same situation github is doing this. Most of the conflicts are when people come and say "I want to build an ad auction for mobile search, and if it goes well, i want to quit and build a startup around it", and then want to argue over whether "ad auction for mobile search" is part of Google's business or not.

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#237

Post by cowsandmilk »

rrdharan wrote: post #184
BuuQu9hu wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your employer, of course, is Google; I know this from my own tussles with Google's OSPO, which exists primarily to ensure that engineers don't have lives outside of Google.

[Disclaimer: I work at Google.] I see no conclusive evidence in the parent comment that proves it's Google. I would've actually guessed Apple. My understanding is that Google actually has a reasonable process for this, and that people have taken advantage of it to start or contribute to projects in a personal capacity.

it sounds the most like Apple except for the open source part. There are a limited set of licenses they allow, but many employees at Apple contribute to open source software, both at work and in their free time.

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#238

Post by rtkwe »

danielweber wrote: post #216
paulddraper wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair. You can certainly make some big mistakes when buying/selling a house. E.g. neglect to have it inspected by due diligence deadline. I used a realtor (with a discounted fee) for my first house. Now I'm buying the second by owner, because I know how the circus operates.

If you get a lawyer for your house transactions, you will pay a flat fee of less than $1000 and still get the advice to always have it inspected.

Here in North Carolina the buyers realtor fees are entirely paid by the seller so there's really no reason not to get one. Ours was really helpful in getting things lined up and providing checklists and support when we had questions.

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#239

Post by strictnein »

_ao789 wrote: post #234
strictnein wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time I buy or sell a home, I'm very thankful that one of my friends has a realtor's license. None of that 7% BS. None of the dumb games they play. How it came about that the services of two realtors was worth $35k on a $500k home is beyond me. Especially in this day and age, where we all just look online and tell our realtors what houses we want to go to. Half the work they used to do is now done by the client.

I completely agree with you on this sentiment. I've often been quite disenfranchised by this whole palaver around financial reward around realestate percentages... From your wording it sounds like you frequently buy/sell houses.. Or is this just me reading into things?

Well, we're on our third house. We bought our first one in 2008. We may be on to house #4 this year. We're weighing remodeling our current place or moving, so we've looked at some homes recently. Not sure if that makes us frequent home buyers or not.

My friend has also worked with my sister, so all told he's helped myself or someone close to me with buying and/or selling 6 homes and maybe a 7th.

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#240

Post by DannyBee »

awinter-py wrote: post #174
gcb0 wrote: post #124

wait. wasn't that the law in California already? or am I thinking of non competes?

Yeah -- this seems not to differ from the law in california / wisconsin. http://law.justia.com/codes/california/2011/lab/division-3/2... These states already assign employees work 'not using equipment', 'not resulting from work', 'not in the employer's area of business'. Many california-based companies will echo this language in the IP assignment section of their employment contract. These protections don't help you…

"These states already assign employees work 'not using equipment', 'not resulting from work', 'not in the employer's area of business'."

This is close but no cigar: You missed " or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer; or"

Which for larger companies, is huge.

Admittedly though, this is the thing that employees always seem to miss in that labor code.

"These protections don't help you if you're at, say, a big 3 company with a lot of businesses. I know someone who asked in their contract negotiation at google if G could provide a comprehensive list of areas of business and G refused."

Even if we had, it wouldn't have mattered because of the above :) There's no way we could give a list of current research to random prospective employee.

That said, it would make no sense to try to enumerate all areas of business that and keep it up to date. Instead, when we get requests, we just ask the relevant business owner.

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