Yeah my contract is very wide in my opinion, given there is always some level of overlap when developing software. Unfortunaly I signed it unchallenged when needing employment during the pandemic :(
Below is an excerpt from my contract:
We understand that lots of our employees have tech related ideas that they work on outside of working hours. In a case where your idea overlaps or conflicts with the work of said company, you agree to the following:
1. You will promptly provide to said company, and otherwise keep confidential, full written details of all inventions, copyright works or designs originated, conceived, written or made by you, alone or with others (“Intellectual Property”), and work relating to Intellectual Property that you have worked on at any time during the course of your employment with said company which relate to, or are reasonably capable of being used in, the business of said company ("Employment IP"). Unless otherwise agreed in writing by the CEO, you are assigning said company absolutely all rights, title, benefits and interests in the Employment IP. The reason for this clause is to protect the Intellectual Property of the Company from infringement or misuse that may damage the position of said company in the market or our ability to serve our clients.
2. You hereby assign to said company with full title guarantee by way of assignment all present and future copyright, database and design rights and other proprietary rights (if any) for the full term of such rights throughout the world in respect of all Intellectual Property and you waive in favour of said company all moral rights conferred by Chapter 4 Part 1 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 and all similar rights in other jurisdictions.
3. You irrevocably appoint said company as your attorney to execute any instrument and do any such thing for the purpose of giving to the Company the full benefit of clause 1.
----
I could probably last 3 years or so with no other revenue streams. There is no rent or mortgage payments needed as I bought a cheap property that is now paid in full. That was part and parcel of the preparation for leaving fulltime employment, to give the startup / product development an attempt on my own and ensure that my runway could go further if needed.
I do have a lengthy notice period, but that is priced in. Also if this venture fails, I will re-enter the market as freelancer to pick up where I left off. Also forget asking the CEO about it or personal assistent, the're far to busy to be concerned with a "tin pot / pie in the sky" idea / product.
I just don't understand why founders, and those advocating for the startup life don't provide advise in this thorny area as it affects so many of us?
Do folks go dark, build in secret, pretending they had executed their plan outside of the course/term of their employment?
I have advised others is to perform research round their ideas by upskilling in areas that they'll need to prove out their ideas. This I hope will minimise the time to build (once departed) without establishing real intellectual property whilst employed. Perform spikes and mini experiements with the technology, without building the final idea and upon departure begin the actual build.
Wondering if folks consider that a sensible strategy or could iterate on it?
> In a case where your idea overlaps or conflicts with the work of said company
IANAL, but it seems pretty clear to me - as long as your idea isn't related to their work, you are in the clear. Keep in mind that the software you write is not the "work of said company" - it is just a tool. The solutions they solve in the markets to which they sell are their work. Do side gigs in other industries and you should be fine.
Keep in mind a lot of BigTech companies will claim a very broad swath of topics are "related to their work". If one of their 30,000 employees are working on X, they can claim your X is related to their work and therefore subject to their broad IP assignment policy.
I was warned during onboarding of my last few jobs that most software side projects would fall under their umbrella of "related business" and that their lawyers regularly aggressively pursued side projects. Who knows, maybe they were bluffing but I'm not willing to go toe to toe with 2,000 corporate lawyers to find out.
It really depends on who you work for. When I was working at a startup, most of my side projects weren't related, but when I was working at Yahoo and Facebook, well it's hard to do something interesting on the Internet that's not related to Yahoo, and maybe Facebook (they're not as broad as Yahoo was, but they could potentially claim a lot). It doesn't matter if it's something way outside of your job area, or even if it's something they would never let you do at work, if it's in their sphere.
There's no need to guess here. Outline the work you want to do and ask them to sign off on it. They should already have a formal process for handling these requests, which are pretty common for people who consult on the side. I've done this half a dozen times and even had it approved once when the technology was directly competitive, by a US defense contractor of all places, because I was targeting a market they didn't care about. You never know until you ask.
> Do folks go dark, build in secret, pretending they had executed their plan outside of the course/term of their employment?
JIT does seem to be more common than AOT. People do the early work in secret and delay the hard decisions until they absolutely have to be made. Most of the time the whole thing unravels before that point anyway, and all the agonizing about quitting was pointless.
Usually there is a business process to declare outside interests that involves approvals from your direct manager and his manager and doesn't require you to talk to the CEO directly.
They keep a central register of declarations that the CEO rubber stamps.
Maybe you can ask HR/Legal about getting that instituted.
If this doesn't work it might be a clear signal that your current employer might not be aligned with your long term goals.
Below is an excerpt from my contract:
We understand that lots of our employees have tech related ideas that they work on outside of working hours. In a case where your idea overlaps or conflicts with the work of said company, you agree to the following:
1. You will promptly provide to said company, and otherwise keep confidential, full written details of all inventions, copyright works or designs originated, conceived, written or made by you, alone or with others (“Intellectual Property”), and work relating to Intellectual Property that you have worked on at any time during the course of your employment with said company which relate to, or are reasonably capable of being used in, the business of said company ("Employment IP"). Unless otherwise agreed in writing by the CEO, you are assigning said company absolutely all rights, title, benefits and interests in the Employment IP. The reason for this clause is to protect the Intellectual Property of the Company from infringement or misuse that may damage the position of said company in the market or our ability to serve our clients.
2. You hereby assign to said company with full title guarantee by way of assignment all present and future copyright, database and design rights and other proprietary rights (if any) for the full term of such rights throughout the world in respect of all Intellectual Property and you waive in favour of said company all moral rights conferred by Chapter 4 Part 1 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 and all similar rights in other jurisdictions.
3. You irrevocably appoint said company as your attorney to execute any instrument and do any such thing for the purpose of giving to the Company the full benefit of clause 1.
----
I could probably last 3 years or so with no other revenue streams. There is no rent or mortgage payments needed as I bought a cheap property that is now paid in full. That was part and parcel of the preparation for leaving fulltime employment, to give the startup / product development an attempt on my own and ensure that my runway could go further if needed.
I do have a lengthy notice period, but that is priced in. Also if this venture fails, I will re-enter the market as freelancer to pick up where I left off. Also forget asking the CEO about it or personal assistent, the're far to busy to be concerned with a "tin pot / pie in the sky" idea / product.
I just don't understand why founders, and those advocating for the startup life don't provide advise in this thorny area as it affects so many of us?
Do folks go dark, build in secret, pretending they had executed their plan outside of the course/term of their employment?
I have advised others is to perform research round their ideas by upskilling in areas that they'll need to prove out their ideas. This I hope will minimise the time to build (once departed) without establishing real intellectual property whilst employed. Perform spikes and mini experiements with the technology, without building the final idea and upon departure begin the actual build.
Wondering if folks consider that a sensible strategy or could iterate on it?
Keen on your thoughts.