HN Explorer

Ask HN: Does every pet project you launch belong to your employer?

2 points by throwawaytaken ↗ HN
I know I have legal agreements to re-read and the local legislation around IP to study, but seeing how I'm the opposite of a lawyer and until I find one: Do default IP regulations state that anything you produce at any time or place belongs to your employer? That's what I keep hearing from my friends

If the subject is too broad: Is there anything that can happen against an open source project released personally while working at a company?

PS. Located and employed in eastern Europe

5 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 22.3 ms ] thread
Relic22799
I'm pretty sure regulations varies by state. I also think it varies per employer. In states where the wording is vague, some companies will slip in specific language/wording into their NDA and employee policies to cover their bases. Whether those policies will hold up in court is another matter, but it could be an added headache.
nostrademons
Consult a lawyer. This is complicated, and depends upon location, your project, and your employer's lines of business. In the absence of that, though, a conservative approximation is that yes, everything you launch belongs to your employer.
jesusmichael
The legal test of what IP would belong to your employer is that if the IP you developed was at the direction and expense of your employer. By expense, would also mean if you used knowledge gained specifically by working for your employer.

That is usually interpreted to mean... That you are building competing or complementing products to your employers.

For example if you build a great CRM system... And you work for a company that builds a word processor... They probably dont have a claim.... But if you build a specialized font system... They would probably have a claim based on the fact that you used knowledge gained by working with them.