Also when nearly all mid-sized corps and above have in their employment contract that all knowledge/output etc whether on company time or not, is property of the company.
In my experience most companies don't even know or care that clause is in there and have no problem waiving it. Remember, employment contracts are almost always just prepared by their legal firm, and the legal firm is just copy-pasting most if not all of the contract.
You can do this with literally any clause of any contract, by the way. The other party might balk (good luck if you try it on your mortgage papers!) but generally it's much easier than you think...
In my cases, they were companies where software development was necessary but tangential to what they do. For example I currently work at a printing company where I help to automate digital stuff and help drive print sales with online storefronts. I'm not even sure the owner knows what programming is other than the fact that I do it for him and it makes his stuff work. So he's not interested in owning software I write outside of work hours...
They have no right. None at all.
It's fair enough to get people to sign something that says they won't leak IP, and even that they won't do other projects that compete with company business. But a catch-all "All your code belongs to us?"
No. Way.
Depends on where you are. In germany this is actually enshrined in the Arbeitnehmererfindungsgesetz. The employer has the right, even without the contract clause. Good luck opting out.
Remind me never to work in Germany! (It comes up once in a while. I probably wasn't going to anyway, but this is further reason not to)
I think Germany's a great country, there's an awful lot done right there, but it's important enough to me that I retain ownership of my own out-of-hours projects that I would not work there.
Is this wrong of me?
Now if you get into the area where you're dealing with trade secrets and patents on stuff that directly relates to your work, even if you write the code on the side, you'll probably run into trouble in a lot of jurisdictions. There's no way to effectively draw the line and say "oh, this small idea about the flux-compensator, I had that at work, but this great, patent-worthy-and-billion-dollar idea, that builds on my previous findings at work, that one, that totally came to me in my spare time (exactly at 08:01 pm, just as I stepped into my car)." That's the problems that these regulations try to tackle. It's imperfect, but hey, at least you're entitled to a fair compensation by the same law.
I don't wish to exposed to those legal possibilities. It's just not acceptable to me.
That's what I meant with 'people you don't want to work for', especially the ones that act out of spite. I found all employers that I worked for in my career quite supportive, some would even allow me to work on the side projects during office time.
> I don't wish to exposed to those legal possibilities. It's just not acceptable to me.
Certainly your choice. Given that a lot of US employment contracts have clauses to the same effect I'd be curious what options remain. European law is fairly well standardized and I'd not be surprised if other european countries have laws to the same effect. Germany tends to be pretty employee friendly.
In the US I would at least be free not to sign such a contract, or demand the clause be removed. I'm in the UK and I wouldn't sign anything like that here either. I also don't believe we have anything like that in law, though I could be wrong.
I know Germany (and much of the EU) are very employee friendly, which is why I find this so surprising, and frankly pretty outrageous.
Ok, sorry, I was unclear: Talk about it, come to an agreement and get that in writing. E-Mail as confirmation should be enough to move the burden of proof to the employer.
> I know Germany (and much of the EU) are very employee friendly, which is why I find this so surprising, and frankly pretty outrageous.
I'm not surprised. This certainly is an area that will get a lot of problematic cases. The law in germany not only contains the first right of the employer to certain inventions, it also stipulates fair compensation and guidelines about the correct process. I much prefer that over "let's battle that out in court." It's actually quite employee-friendly.
Lawsuits need only occur when someone strays into the middle.
I'm assuming an English equivalent is something like "standard conflict resolution for employees?" I can see "arbitration" in the German, if I'm not mistaken.
The english equivalent would be "Law governing inventions made by employees".
A lot of language features seem pretty weird from other reference points. But I don't think it's constructive to point it out like this.
From that I would argue that by building a similar product in his free time he was effectively working for a competitor.
I agree entirely that the employer has the right to ask you not to compete while you're still employed by them. I won't sign non-competes that extend past employment, but I don't think it's unreasonable to sign one during employment. Particularly not for products (FOSS or otherwise) that directly compete with the very thing you're working on now.
But that's the case discussed here. The guy was tasked to build a CI-System at work and built another one in his spare time.
The clauses are usually more nuanced because the blanket "we own all you ever create" is - rightfully - considered to broad and unenforceable.
In WA state, only work you do on company time, or with/on company resources can be claimed by the company.