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> Otherwise, Google owns any IP created while you're at the company. Not necessary in California: Any provision in an employment agreement which provides that an employee shall assign, or offer to assign, any of his or her rights in an invention to his or her employer shall not apply to an invention that the employee developed entirely on his or her own time without using the employer s equipment, supplies, facilitie…
Huh. Everywhere i worked, the rules were along the lines of "you can do whatever you want as long as the goals/deadlines are met". A company taking copyright of personal projects of it's employees is unheard of around here (Russia). I've actually encountered this kind of clause in a contract for working as a subcontractor for an american company (they own rights to everything i made during the contract), but when i p…
The basic rule of thumb when seeing stupid clauses like this is 'Someone did something shift, a lawsuit happened and the words "I didn't know I couldn't" came out of the defendant's mouth and that cost/almost cost the plaintiff the case. So now they make it overbroad so you can't claim you didn't know'.
There have been several cases over the years--one of which got several cow-orkers of mine fired--where the "side project" turned into a real company and it turned out to either be based on the companies source code, or created by looking at the companies source code (in one case a competing product, in another case a complementary product).
In some ways it's an "anti-predatory" clause.
I've mostly been subject to it at much larger companies and defense contractors.
It's also something that you can usually get a 'waiver' (or whatever your company calls it) for. Go to your boss, or whomever and get them to put in writing that "Yeah, we know about this, and it's ok with us".
I had to get permission from the founder for any outside business, even side projects.
That's crazy town to me. Have you had a frank discussion about that with him? i.e. your own personal time, is your own.
If it's just for an Open Source project, that that's one thing, but if you're also working 10 or 20 hours a week with another company then they (a) need to know that they have to account for that in scheduling and expectations and (b) want to know that you're not working for a competitor and passing inside information.
I had one guy on my team who was working 16 to 24 hours a week at another job, which meant that needed to be careful how I scheduled him (because at the time we didn't have enough work to schedule everyone full time. If we had, well then he'd have to sort that out).
> Otherwise, Google owns any IP created while you're at the company. Not necessary in California: Any provision in an employment agreement which provides that an employee shall assign, or offer to assign, any of his or her rights in an invention to his or her employer shall not apply to an invention that the employee developed entirely on his or her own time without using the employer s equipment, supplies, facilitie…
>> Relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer s business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer; or
First of, this is not same as not competing with your employer.
"Relate" here is not well-specified. I was told by a lawyer that if something is in the same trademark category (e.g., software), it can be considered "related". So if your work is in the line of the main business of the employer, you are unlikely to be coming up with anything that is not related. Unless your employer makes software, and your side business is making, ahem, burgers or something.
Also from the link:
>> Inventions Made by an Employee
Note the word "inventions" there. It is unclear if this is taken to mean just the things that are inventions (e.g., patentable ideas), or also works of copyright. In other words, if you work for a software company, you create a software side project for image processing, all the source code you write may still be the property of your employer as that source code is a subject of copyright (even in California), though they may not get any inventions encompassed in that source code.
PS: I am not a lawyer, though have read a book or two on this subject.
A related question -- for companies that assert copyright over all your work done on personal time -- do you typically receive this prior to your start date (along with the job offer letter), or is it something that you have to sign after starting?
The last few jobs I've worked have had the policy that they own everything by default but you can declare in writing past and new side projects and ideas to exclude. I think this is a reasonable balance between freedom for me and securing the company interests
2. "New" side projects may not be covered by such declarations, which are about the past. So if you want to continue some side projects, you should read the language of the agreement carefully, and/or, reach an agreement in writing with them that you are working on the said side projects and this is OK with them.
> Otherwise, Google owns any IP created while you're at the company. Not necessary in California: Any provision in an employment agreement which provides that an employee shall assign, or offer to assign, any of his or her rights in an invention to his or her employer shall not apply to an invention that the employee developed entirely on his or her own time without using the employer s equipment, supplies, facilitie…
There's very little space in the "NOT competing with Google" set.
At Crowdbotics you are required to be working on at least one side project, either for fun or for profit, at all times. You own it.