Ask HN: I want to open source a project, but my company has a problem...

The company I work for requires that all employees submit a request to work on open source projects in their free time (Washington state has no laws that prevent such behavior by corporations).

They've given initial approval, but they have issues with one part of what I want to do, citing potential patent infringement. They suggested that I submit several mock-ups of the potentially offending project and they will pick a few that don't have any patent conflicts. They can't disclose any information about the patents since they haven't been granted yet, and they can't just tell me not to do it a certain way.

I can't go into details about the specific part that faces potential patent issues since I don't want to jeopardize my project or my job.

My question: should I submit mock-ups for approval and deal with any restrictions that arise as a result or should I just keep working on the project in my free time, but not open source it until whenever I choose to leave the company? I won't leave for several years unless the project gets really popular. I have already verified that this wouldn't be an issue if I wasn't an employee of the company (I asked the patent lawyers "So if I did it in a way you didn't like, could I just quit and that'd be the end of it? -- Yes").