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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

This is why you don’t work on that side project while still working at your main job. Every large company I’ve worked at has been very clear during orientation: they will assert ownership of anything you do while employed, on or off the clock, using your own equipment or theirs. It’s not worth the risk to moonlight bootstrapping your startup. Not saying it’s right but saying that it is. These companies have a lot of lawyers.

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How do they have the right to own what you make off the clock on your own equipment?? Do they own you outside of your contractually agreed-upon hours?

Section 2870 of the California Labor Code[1]:

> 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, facilities, or trade secret information except for those inventions that either:

> (1) 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

> (2) Result from any work performed by the employee for the employer.

> (b) To the extent a provision in an employment agreement purports to require an employee to assign an invention otherwise excluded from being required to be assigned under subdivision

> (a), the provision is against the public policy of this state and is unenforceable.

Any such agreement must also state that it does not apply to an invention that qualifies under Section 2870[2].

[1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...

[2] http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection....

To everyone who replied to this question: no need to speculate on this, the IPA is Exhibit A https://regmedia.co.uk/2019/12/10/apple_v_gerard_williams.pd...

(William's lawyers claim the IPA is void: https://regmedia.co.uk/2019/12/09/applevwilliamscounter.pdf)

Thanks for pointing it out. I think a lot of people are downvoting this because they don’t want to believe it’s true. I worked there in the past and can tell you this is 100% truly part of tour employment agreement. They even forbid you from having a personal Apple Developer account while you work there. Apple is very protective of anything that they even perceive might be their IP.

In addition (and this is slightly offtopic to the lawsuit itself, apologies), aside from a few high profile open source projects like LLVM that help drive their business, the default is that Apple employees are not allowed to contribute to open source projects. This is why you see so few Apple contributors in open source projects. This is in sharp contrast to, say, Google, which actively encourages open source work in a number of ways. Making it relevant to the original topic, that's a fairly common path for people to bring technology out of the company. I'd personally argue that it's ethical, ethical, and of benefit to society. Whether companies think that such lenient approaches to open source benefit them apparently vary pretty widely from company to company.

In CA you have a right to whatever you create your own time. In Texas (IIRC) and some other states your employer can claim a right to anything you create while under their employ. It's a state by state thing.

Note the claim here seems to be that he utilized Apple time and resources to work on his new project.

> In CA you have a right to whatever you create your own time.

Only if it is unrelated to your company’s current and potential future business[1]. Big tech companies like Apple can argue that almost anything related to electronics or software could be a future business for them.

I’m not rich enough to risk finding out. If a big tech company decided to sue me, I’d be bankrupt from legal fees in a few months, whether I was right or wrong.

EDIT 1: thanks antoncohen for posting the actual law’s wording: “actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer”

Yes that’s right I was unfortunately speaking in generalities and in this case the specifics are crucial.

Obviously it varies by employment region, but my contract doesn't say "You work 40 hours a week". It says "We own everything you create while you're employed by us".

This is common but not universal. The agreement I have with google, by contrast, gives them a perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive right to use anything I create while I work here. This is not the same as owning those things.

One contract that was handed to me from an established company even included a clause that any IP created by even up to 5 (FIVE!) years AFTER you're no longer employed belongs to the company. Vaguely defined as anythikng related to the 'core business' (technology). Ridiculous and thankfully at least under CA laws completely unenforceable bully tactics.

California has laws explicitly prohibiting the latter. If you work on your own time with your own equipment, then the company doesn't own the IP. Technically, you're supposed inform your employer of the work, but I have no idea how that works in practice.

That's what I don't understand:

> they will assert ownership of anything you do while employed, on or off the clock, using your own equipment or theirs

How can this be legal (or enforcable)? I can see that the work done on the clock, with company equipment, is what they paid for and own. What you do on your own time and equipment though, they haven't paid (and doubt would be willing to pay) to own all of your time and work.

But I've heard it's common - fortunately I've never been in that situation, and would not consider signing such an unfair contract.

But if you're paid salary then how do you dictate what time is your time and what time is the company's? Especially when people sometimes work from home, check emails after they leave work, etc?

IANAL, so I can't say what allows this sort of thing, but it is very common for companies to assert exactly this.

I don't know if it's been tested in court or not.

You're in a contract with them that specifies this as a clause. So yes, they kinda do (unfortunately).

And that's wholly unethical. Companies that do this are happy for employees to remain wage slaves and nothing more. They don't truly admire success unless it feeds the bottom line.

Unless Apple can prove this person stole something (cf. Waymo), fuck them. I hope every engineer they have that is working on their own side hustle leaves and that anyone considering the company for employment looks elsewhere.

Are these unethical contracts made (or at min. shielded/supported) by same folks who once had mini / side hustle of own and now gone big? Or is it a different populace altogether?

(edit: might just turn out to be a rhetoric)

Not if the contract provision is illegal. And many of these contracts are indeed illegal in the state of California.

Unless it has literally nothing to do with your job, like you are a web dev and design a new type of hand saw after hours, some places will claim that your side project was made with knowledge gained at work, therefore it belongs to them.

It does in Anglo-Saxon law

The Master and Servant acts (from way back when) basically a lot of US and UK labour law descends from pre American revolution law and precedent.

yes, if I have an idea while on the toilet at night, then that idea is the property of my company. (according to my contract)

Would that apply to all the folks who sit on the board of other companies while working at another?

The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.

The kinds of higher-level job-holders who might be sitting on other boards would likely have employment agreements that are negotiated to specifically carve out those exceptions.

Usually it's mutually agreed upon when there's a conflict. For example Disney CEO Bob Iger was on Apple's board up until Apple announced they were creating a streaming service. Disney was planning a streaming service that would compete with Apple TV+. Iger announced his resignation from Apple's board on September 10.

Doesn't the name side-project imply that it's something you work alongside your main job?

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