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Sorry, this isn't the only practical way for software companies. There are three main approaches: no mention at all (vague and bad for all parties), ownership of all related ideas developed on company time/company equipment [this is the only type of contract I will sign], and the company owns everything you do at any time.

Since both #2 and #3 have been used by companies, clearly #3 can't be the "only practical way".

> > Your game designer works for a year and invents 7 games. At the end of the year, she sues you, claiming that she owns 4 of them, because those particular games were invented between 5pm and 9am, when she wasn’t on duty.

This is a terrible example. If the game designer delivers you 7 games during the year, that's a pretty clear indication that they are for you and are works for hire under the contract.

Also, if you are hiring her for game design, then off hours, she can't design games, because that is directly competitive. She can, however, design software that manages greenhouses. And that is as it should be.

If there are any games she designed on her own time that she doesn't want to be yours, she wouldn't have given them to you. If she kept one, launched it herself, and made a ton of money, you would probably have a claim. But she has no claim to games she gave you.

[Could she still sue? Sure, every example can be made into some court case with a possible terrible outcome -- that's called life. But this is not a realistic problem.]

> Also, if you are hiring her for game design, then off hours, she can't design games, because that is directly competitive.

Isn't that basically the same as saying that all games she design belongs to the company?

Yes, and it fits into option #2. It is work directly related to the company. And?

"Your game designer works for a year and invents 7 games. At the end of the year, she sues you, claiming that she owns 4 of them, because those particular games were invented between 5pm and 9am, when she wasn’t on duty."

She wasn't paid for ideas, she was paid for intellectual property: code.

"hey listen, I know that inventing happens all the time, and it’s impossible to prove whether you invented something while you were sitting in the chair I supplied in the cubicle I supplied or not."

You don't need to prove whether something was invented while sitting on the chair. There's a pretty simple explicit transferral of intellectual property - you pushed it to the company github.

"that ONE GUY from 1998 who didn’t sign the agreement is going to be a real jerk about signing it now, because he knows that he’s personally holding up a $350,000,000 acquisition and he can demand a lot of money to sign."

Which happened when, exactly?

I've been involved in two diligence exercises (on the buy side), where not having IP assignment was an issue for the selling company.

I wasn't close enough on the selling side to figure out what concessions they needed to make to make the problem go away, but it absolutely can and does hold up acquisitions.

"not having IP assignment"

Was this specifically about a clause in an employees contract that allowed for side projects?

Or was it, say, about a software license purchased from another company? (which probably does happen, yes)

It's been a few years, but as I recall, both were early figures (unclear if employees or contractors) that had no signed IP assignment contract on file.

It really does. Especially when your options for "walking away" have similar bullshit authoritarian contracts.

Also, considering how much money megacorps can make of employees' ideas, I'd say that many aren't fairly compensated at all.

Doesn't the "we own all your output" line also sway employees against pursuing their own potentially world-changing ideas as well? Is that good for everyone?

I feel bad for people with this bootlicker mindset...

If I get sued for violating the contract well that sucks for me but I'm certainly not going to feel bad for it.

Words of a man with not much to lose. Once your net worth is in multiple millions, the calculation will change quite a bit. You will most definitely not want to lose your life's savings on a moral crusade.

Yeah of course, I'm not saying the contract wouldn't have an influence on my actions, just that I don't (and you shouldn't) feel a moral/ethical obligation to follow it.

And that's exactly what those contracts are aiming for: not to control your mind, but to establish a deterrent from much more nefarious shenanigans, if thoughts of such shenanigans arise. Some of the top Silicon Valley companies (dating all the way back to the 70's) would simply not exist if those contracts were followed to the letter.

Bootlicker? If you sign a contract, you are saying you're alright with it.

You're saying you're happy to reneg on contractual terms. Good luck in life but those of us who stand by our word want nothing to do with you.

> If you sign a contract, you are saying you're alright with it.

No, you are saying you don't want to be unemployed and starve on the streets.

> Good luck in life but those of us who stand by our word want nothing to do with you.

Standing by your word to other human beings is of course a commendable quality, standing by your word to corporations, not so much.

No one in our industry will "starve on the streets" in the foreseeable future. They may have to take a smaller paycheck with a contract that doesn't have the clauses they don't like, but let's not engage in histrionics here. And I agree with the parent, your choice of language is inappropriate and tiresome. You're posting to a forum read by literally thousands of people you're calling "bootlickers". Not smart.

As I said, signing such a contract doesn't make you a bootlicker. (I have signed such a contract myself.) But I can't for the life of me understand why people are feeling bad for working on side projects and not wanting to have the rights signed over to their corporate overlords. That's just a depressing ethical framework to live your life by. (Obviously I'm not talking about the Lewandowski espionage type case.)