what is the situation wrt. ideas created by employees while employed ? who owns them ?

[Christopher Browne]

On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 3:23 PM, Peter<plpeter2006-/E1597aS9LQAvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> The subject says it all. There are places where the employer owns everything.
> What is the situation here ? I was unable to find a coherent answer, only
> discussions so far. I.e. if A works for B and develops a product C independently
> from his 'daytime' work, which he later markets with D or alone, can B claim
> ownership ?

This tends to depend on the employment contract that you signed, which
is almost certain to be different from the employment contract that I
signed.

It is Highly Common for the relevant details to differ based on the
nature of the employment.

- I work for a company that develops software, and this sort of
organization has a strong tendency to jealously guard their ownership
of "everything they can."

- One who works for a pizza place likely doesn't have the same kind of
zeal surrounding "intellectual property."

There is *considerable* variation between these extremes in terms of
what kinds of clauses they are likely to put into employee contracts.

It's very much worth noting that there are not "universally applied"
answers applied throughout provincial or federal jurisdictions - it
depends on what the employee agrees to.  (Of course, if a would-be
employee chooses *not* to agree, that is likely to lead to them
deciding they won't become an employee...)
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