Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by rosbrith 3340 days ago
Mine (also UK) is similar to what you describe, minus your addendum. It makes reference to agreeing that inventions (new software, I imagine) developed during the course of my employment must be made available to the company for its use. I've never known the company to call anyone out on this.
1 comments

Yes that is true, I have never known anyone that was called out on this. However I am sure if an invention becomes popular and really valuable that some organisations, espcially big ones, would not hesitate to give it a try.
My UK contact has no IP terms but the employer added something into the employee handbook claiming to own everything which was a problem for me as I do a number of non-work projects outside work.

I had a discussion and got a clarification on the scope and we agreed that it covered specified things with work applicability, so I'm satisfied now (will start work on the best selling novel and string of number one hits right away!).

It was important it wasn't just based on a vague ill-defined idea of "outside work" because typically a portion of what is clearly work related IP I generate doesn't happen in a formal work situation, yet I understand it as work (and am fine with that) whilst equally there is plenty of non-work IP that is just as clearly in no way work (as it doesn't relate to our line of business).