[ns8sl]

And of course, nothing stops an employer from harassing you legally.

I was working on a personal project once and it seemed to make sense to join it with another product from another company. We collaborated on the combination design, but never moved forward with it. I never joined the company and I was never compensated in any way. No joint product or code or anything was ever produced.

However, the CEO of that company threatened me with legal action when I joined a different company to implement what I was working on. He sent a cease and desist to me and the company. I had to retain a lawyer to fend that off. Luckily, the accusations were so ridiculous it wasn't hard.