[DannyBee]

"That's not true, at least not in California."

People, for the most part, very badly misunderstand what california law says. For most large diversified corporations, the corporation will own all of it, because it will "Relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer’s business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer;"

Note that it's completely irrelevant what the employee is doing for them. Also note that most employees rarely have any idea of all the things their employer does.

By numbers, employees lose the vast majority of lawsuits under 2870 in california.

(I believe that the fact that people think it is so great is one of the things that holds us back from making it actually great)

[Terribledactyl]

> By numbers, employees lose the vast majority of lawsuits under 2870 in california.

Do you happen to know if this is because only very strong cases materialize?

[DannyBee]

I don't, but it's certainly possible.

Most employers have no desire to sue employees, so most of these settle or get ignored, AFAIK.

At least in the case of Google (literally, i have no concept of other Alphabet companies), the only cases i'm aware of where Google has claimed it owned something was when the employee sued Google first.

example: A former employee suing Google over a patent developed while employed by Google, google counterclaims it owns that patent under the IP agreement.

[DonbunEf7]

Since some folks have trouble reading between the lines: Google considers all code possibly relevant to its business interests, and treats employees (in)appropriately.

The only way to win is to not have ideas.

[DannyBee]

Errr, what i wrote literally was not about Google, but a commentary on the state of the law.

You will find the same issue at any large diversified company. Quite literally.