If you invent anything during your employment, the intellectual property belongs to the employer

>If you invent anything during your employment, the intellectual property belongs to the employer

Not if you do it on your free time, moron.

Most biggest companies make contracts that forbid you in inventing stuff in your free time

>being employed
>inventing things and allowing your work to steal it
you deserve it

And they aren't forceable in any legal way.

>During the Employee's employment with the Employer, the Employee agrees not to accept or continue in any job, consulting work, directorship, or employment that may conflict with Employee's duties and responsibilities to Employer, including the duty of loyalty

Still counts.

Oh boy are you wrong.
Any time you try to comercialice anything you made for working for the company, the lawsuit awaits you (unless you willingly give it up for the fraction of the potential price).

Never fall for that.

I don't like working on the clock for anything technology related, hence by free time job is not related to computers or technology at all.

My biggest income is my self-employed job.

no, he's right.

>legal document you sign
>my NEET autistic experience (none) says they aren't legally forced *tips fedora*
Hilarious user.

same in uni, current environment is anti-progress.

'murica
land of the free

we don't have that here regarding universities

that's a ridiculous assumption

>working

It's 2017, neet it up until unversal income check comes.

Because you guys never invent anything

but you've got the huge price to be there in the first place.

No? What are you talking about?

Only if your contract states it.

Depends on your contract.

Are you dumb? Of course they are, all such court cases results in the company getting the patent. Silicon Valley often do not pursue such patents, but only due to culture. When they DO sue they usually get to own the patent and the inventor need to license it.

>says the guy browsing the World Wide Web

Just because you signed something doesn't mean it'll be legally aplicable. You cannot just kill someone and say "he signed a paper that says I'm LEGALLY allowed to kill him so it's ok!"
Don't be stupid user.

I am a sovereign citizen... US law do not apply to me. Just because I sign a legal document does not mean it applies. I just say that it does not apply to me anymore, which makes the patent mine. If you say the contract does not apply then the signature is void.

>I am a sovereign citizen... US law do not apply to me.
LOL enjoy being irrelevant

You do not have a legal duty to uphold any agreement to do anything illegal. But making a patent is not illegal.

don't you have giant tuition fees? remember when I visited 5 years ago it was 40 k a year at UVA

irrelevant to what?
I swear the US is home to some of the dumbest fucking people on this planet.

The patent belongs to you, the company cannot take it from you no matter what kind of contract you have signed on. It would be theft.

Is there anything more cucked than an american code monkey?

It's the property of the company. As written in your contract any patent you make belongs to the company. You cannot take it from the company. It would be theft

it really is. i don't even know how it became the superpower that it is today, americans deserve trump indeed.

If you try to patent something you did during your contract, the company can put a lawsuit on it claiming you're ripping them off. They have a dozen of expert lawyer and money to burn, you don't, you'll lose or go bankrupt.
Unless you wait a good time after the contract and hope for no one applying the same patent in between.

What you make belongs to you, not the company.

Yes, for USA.
We aren't talking about USA.

Holy shit, someone has never been to Silicon Valley, have they?

Not legally enforceable unless it was invented during work hours on the company premises, or if it was created using ideas or patents belonging to the company you work for.

You can for example not go to work at Verizon, go home and draw a Picasso-level masterpiece, sell it, and then be forced to give the money to Verizon because you happened to work for them at the time.

However if you were to go work for Amazon's delivery department, and then suddenly come up with a revolutionary new AI system for delivery drones that is worth millions, then yes, you will end up with a legal hot potato in your lap.


Contracts aren't magical "sell your soul to the devil" papers. They cannot be illegal and they cannot be unreasonable.
Any lawyer who doesn't have downs syndrome and a law degree from Sesame street would absolutely shred one of those bullshit "Anything you come up with from when you start to six months after you quit is our property" claims in court.

>Of course they are

Read: >t and hope for no one applying the same patent in between.
>>>
>Anonymous 11/02/17(Thu)16:55:42 No.6318378

>What you make belongs to you, not the company.
Not if there is a signed legal document saying otherwise.
What are you trying to prove? You work for such a company and want to sleep better at night?

They are in THE LAND OF THE FREE™

The company you work for cannot tell you what to do in your free time. If it does then I'm sorry but you may be a victim in human trafficking.

Been a developer for a long time now and the whole side project thing varies between employers. There are three main approaches, they either love personal projects and anything you make on your own time is yours, they insist on owning anything you do ever, or they ask you to make them aware of any projects you've got cooking before they hire you and let you keep those. This is something you can negotiate in your contract. Tell them that you will not sign over your rights to things you've created on your own hardware on your own time. 99% of the time they'll drop the issue and amend the contract.

This is because they know that a good chunk of courts will side with the solo hobby developer over the big bad greedy company if they sue you over it. That said, keep your wits about you. Make sure you never keep any materials that you want to stay yours on the company network. Keep a development journal with dates and specifics (write it by hand if you want to make it fool proof) and tell your coworkers (one or two that you trust) what you're up to. Get a private repo and keep it up to date with your project. Any lawyer with a brain will slam dunk that case and you'll likely collect a sum from your employer.

Are you dumb? The whole point of capitalism is that capitalists can exploit workers and own what they make. And the contracts states what you make that belongs to the company you communist fuck

The company can tell you what to do with your free time. There is legally no such thing as free time if not explicitly stated. A company can demand overtime for example

>only due to culture
Wrong. It's because NDAs with that sort of language are illegal in California. It's why there's a healthy startup culture there.

depends on the contract

>being a slave by choice

>A company can demand overtime for example
where the fuck do you live? Japan?

Well... Unless you are unionised of course

Friend's dad did that, said he made a glue for sealing snack bags, apparently before they had just melted the bag closed. Dunno if that's true or just school yard bullshit

> not knowing www invented by a brit
ya make me sad user

> neet it up user til you can neet it up user

Not really.
For a company to even acquire patents developed by their employs, on their free time, they have to basically do the illegal crime of collusion and lying in court.
Which means that to make a free time patent you basically need a checklist:
1. Companies current internal R&D, that you have access to. Copy and bring back home
2. Don't do a 1:1 of a thing the company is already making, which is the only legal case they have legs
3. Do not ask for okay when filing patent
4. Its possible to fire suits which can't be appealed.
5. If you get sued, you need legal advice, but not a lawyer

Depends on legal zone. Laws vary from
1. Can't
2. Can
3. Can fire at will, but not worth the hassle
4. Can fire at will, but workers are unionized and will fire a counter suit, ALWAYS
5. Have to schedule, at the least a week in advance
6. You can't do overtime, but you can hire temp employs for overproduction

Only people with knowledge of technology knows this. He is likely some Sup Forumsindows baby or one of those Apple "geniuses" making marketing threads.

I think you're confusing the poster for a American.
While the original post was saying 'muricans live in the land of the "free" and have to pay for universities.

And Henry Ford invented the motor vehicle

u forgot to ask if i wanted fries with that monganon

That's why you don't publicize any work you'd like to be paid for until after you quit. Freshly generate all files at that point, and file for any patents immediately after leaving so the invention label doesn't take place until the contract tenure is completed. Basically, while working just keep your mouth shut if you have a good idea until it's quitting time.

>There is legally no such thing as free time if not explicitly stated.
And that's not legally enforceable in any way. Contracts are always at the bottom of the legal system and cannot overrule the working limits. Even places with barely any labor rights like America have 8 hours a day.

(You)

>The company can tell you what to do with your free time. There is legally no such thing as free time if not explicitly stated. A company can demand overtime for example

Free time is per definition free, meaning you can do with it whatever you like.
If you are at work and the chief demands overtime you still can say no if it is unreasonable, demand payment or freetime in exchange.
Here in Germany there is a maximal working time. If you work longer you can get punished and the company gets punished even more.

I would never accept a contract with random overtime included unless the pay is more than good.
Overtime only in moderation or with huge benefits (like 150% of the payment) or generous exchange of free-time.

I wish I was motivated enough for this to be an issue for me. I have neither employment nor projects :(

OP here, I live in Europe and I signed a contract to work for a pharmaceutical company.

See . It's called a moonlighting clause: it says I can't work for any other company, even if this is during my free time.

Moonlighting clauses are fairly standard but I don't know of any case where they held up. In any case, you should never sign a work contract with a moonlighting clause. I personally have renegotiated until they got rid of said clause or rewrote it to only include direct competition.

> use GPL licence for ur personal projects
> nobody get money if the program becomes popular
> all the glory is for you

And you can still earn money on it without breaking patent clauses.

>OP here, I live in Europe
OP is bullshit then.

If you invent anything during your employment,
WHILE using company hardware, software, time, resources,
THEN it belongs to the company

If you do it at your home with your own resources and your own hardware and software, its your own.

>you cant sell things that are GPL
I am new? Cant I still sell my stuff? I thought I just couldnt hide it away. Most people wont give a shit about wheter or not they can see the source code right? Brand name and convinence seem like easy ways to make money.

You can still sell it, but because GPL is a form of public domain nobody can take the rights from you. It's not a patent and nobody can patent something like that.

> invent it on your free time
> use the appropriate license
> let yourself use it for work
> it's still yours

don't sign a contract like that then if you want to do your own shit in your free time? It's not a hard concept.

Every day I'm thankful I don't live in a shithole like the US, good lord...

>dont work juat starve lmao

You're claiming to be outside the law while wanting the society that created those laws to protect your intellectual property. Are you retarded?

I'm pretty sure there are jobs with less stringent clauses.

THIS

Renegotiate or start your own nigger.

How do I start a nigger?

Rent one.

top kek

>invent something while being employed
>leave and become unemployed
>wait a few months
>release your invention as something you worked on while being unemployed

WOW SO HARD, fucking brainlets.

>employer sues your dumbass the second they catch wind of this
>brings your case to the court and shows the contract and says you invented this while working for them and you're fucked
you're the only brainlet retard. they will have lawyers getting paid $1000 per hour speaking in tongues to the judge convincing them it's theirs fucking idiot

How would they fucking know, let alone PROVE, that you invented it while working for them?

Are you literally retarded?

they don't have to PROVE SHIT. even if you invented it in your free time they will still sue your dumbass saying it's theirs if it's a moneymaker. who makes it doesn't matter. what matters is they got lawyers getting paid $1000 speaking in tongues to the judge convincing them with some obtuse bullshit law that it's theirs

I hope you're pretending to be this retarded

>>During the Employee's employment with the Employer, the Employee agrees not to accept or continue in any job, consulting work, directorship, or employment that may conflict with Employee's duties and responsibilities to Employer, including the duty of loyalty

Doesn't say anything about inventing something in your free time.

If you're making a competitor to your employer, of course that is a different fucking thing, you dumb retard. Not that it would pose much of a threat because you're obviously fucking braindead.

The burden of proof is on the one who sues. Google onus probandi.

Confirmed for literal retardation.

if you do it on their hardware, yea

i write all my own code on my personal computer at home off hours

You mean on their payroll during work hours. Then maybe.

Merely their hardware doesn't make your work theirs. Yes, they might fire you and charge a fee for returning you your data if you use it for your personal use unauthorized.

But it still doesn't make all your stuff theirs any more than you can just write down a clause that anyone carrying not individually authorized money and bank/credit carts into your property forfeits them and all associated accounts minus the ones with debt. [Or at least so I hope. Burgerstan might allow this somewhere for all I know.]

depend on the contract you sign.

>now unemployed if it flops and have to take an entry-level position somewhere else

The brice of breedoms :-))))))

This is kind of what I expected. Do you have any examples of cases where they were shredded or know any relevant laws, or is this just so stupid it doesn't need anything that specific?

top 10 global company by size employee here

Depends on your employment percentage. If you are employed full time (100%) your employer owns all your "work force", means if you come up with something fancy in your free time, it's his property. But in reality, most of the times, big companies won't make use of that right. I had colleagues leaving with 1 million $ + ideas and the only times the company wanted to stay on board was as an investor. I work only 3 days a week (60%) therefore my contract states that I am allowed to take employment at somewhere else or be self employed the rest of the time.

in any civilized first world country, the company can demand over time if necessary for maintaining the company. In my 7 years as a Software Engineer, I usually only did overtime when a project was interesting. The only time I was forced to do overtime was when a client of ours (bank) had a complete online baking system failure due to a bug that has been deployed to a part of the infrastructure which was a 0.00n rounding mistake.

You can do in your free time whatever the fuck you want. Your working hours are defined by contract and that's your must. The most autistic thing I have seen in first world is Germany, where some contracts include a "free overtime"of N hours.

>2017
>almost 2018
>being employed
What's the matter? Your super awesome country does not write you big enough NEETbux checks?

In California and Washington states you own whatever you invent regardless of where you invent it. Seattle, Los Angeles and Silicon Valley are big tech hubs for a reason.

If your job has an 'on call' clause mentioned or you spend any time on call then technically youre getting paid to work 24/7. Not that im saying they'd enforce it if you invented something on your weekend but if you worked for a tech company and invented google/facebook 2.0 in your spare time then you probably would loose the case if they really wanted to fuck you over

The whole world pretty much agrees you Americans are retarded.

It unironically is that bad though. In the US, there's no "British rule" of "loser pays". It's 100% legal to use the justice system to bankrupt a poorer party or to rob property through forced deals that come out of such violent litigation.

Corporations do it against each other all the time too. It's what Creative Labs did to Aureal in the late 90s. A3D was a million times better than EAX, Creative sued Aureal with bogus claims of patent infringement and Aureal was found to be innocent, but they had millions in debt at that point. So Creative "offered" a deal to pay off Aureal's debts and legal costs in exchange of all parent portfolio and IP, which was worth FAR more than their debt, but they had no choice since their finances were ravished by Creative. It's perfectly legal to do that.

ah, so this is the power of the land of the free
wow

No wonder Facebook put the patent clause in the React license