[mikeryan]

The early part of the complaint covers this a bit. He did work on the new startup while still employed at Apple, including poaching engineers. He was also responsible to not do anything that could "compete with or take any actions inimical to the interests of Apple while employed by Apple"

That tied to some claims that he's utilizing some Apple IP. Looks like he may have been doing a lot of the work on his startup based on his work at Apple - and potentially sandbagging his work there and stashing the goods under his new umbrella - (my interpretation apparently he said he was developing technology that Apple needs)

There's enough here that seems outside of the protections that CA affords.

[Braggadocious]

Are side projects really that big of a deal? This is tech. Everybody has side projects. Can you imagine if a herman miller furniture designer was sued for making chairs on the side?

[chipotle_coyote]

> Can you imagine if a herman miller furniture designer was sued for making chairs on the side?

If the contract they signed with Herman Miller expressly forbade them from doing this, yes, I can totally imagine that. The problem isn't the side project, per se -- it's starting a side project that is in direct or indirect competition with your employer. If you work in the Alexa group at Amazon, for instance, they're probably not going to care about a "side project" of selling sparkly pony dolls on Etsy, but if your "side project" is developing a new voice assistant, you're going to have a problem.

[rramdin]

Yes, generally if you work full time, your employer contractually owns any IP you produce unless you disclose that you're involved in outside projects.

[heavyset_go]

They might own what you do on company time with company resources, but full-time employment does not entail your employer owning the intellectual property you produce on your time with your own resources.

[NovemberWhiskey]

But my understanding is your employment contract can pre-assign that property to your employer, and that contract will be enforceable in (e.g.) California if the IP relates "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".

(IANAL; TINLA)

[filmgirlcw]

Totally depends on your employment contract. Plenty of large places and even smaller places take a “we own everything you create” clause.

Now, now enforceable it is often depends, but the Oculus case is just one major example of how a company can assert ownership of IP created outside of work hours.

[heavyset_go]

> Totally depends on your employment contract.

Right, I was addressing the OP who said that full time employment means that your employer owns the intellectual property you create on your own time, which isn't the case by default.

[saagarjha]

And for large companies, even if they don't "own everything you create" they often have their fingers in enough pies for anything you could come up with to be construed as being a conflict of interest.

[NovemberWhiskey]

If my side project is something that benefits from (in this case, perhaps even 'consists of') the intellectual property I'm creating for my current employer, and is also something that I intend to turn into a new business ... that seems quite a lot different from "I do some open source contributions" or "I make some furniture for home".

[saagarjha]

"I do some open source contributions" is not easy at all at Apple.

[Braggadocious]

"I make some furniture from home" is a completely different analogy from the one i just made. Either you didn't get it or that's willful contextomy.

Every company started by someone uses experience they've generated at a previous job. These contracts effectively make anyone starting a company a breach of contract. And just because it's in a contract, doesn't mean it can't be thrown out by a judge if the terms are too unreasonable. These terms are too unreasonable.

Also the concept of "intellectual property" is so misunderstood and abused by the legal system. Originally it was meant to prevent people from writing books that tail on the success of another person's work, like trying to get paid for harry potter fan fiction. It doesnt mean that after being a fiction writer for one publisher the publisher subsequently owns all fictional writing you do for the rest of your life. Prince should've had to change his name to Artist just so he could write music again. Maybe Nuvia's CEO needs to needs to change his name too just so he can continue making microchips.

[NovemberWhiskey]

> Every company started by someone uses experience they've generated at a previous job.

No-one (at least I don't think anyone) is suggesting that knowledge, experience and skills belong to your employer.

But if I'm a video game developer, and I invent a new shading technique for video game graphics while I'm employed at BigGameCo (whether at home or at work), and I have signed a contract that assigns ownership of my inventions to BigGameCo, then that contract is generally enforceable (again, according to my non-lawyer understanding) and that invention belongs to BigGameCo.

I'm not trying to say the line is always going to be clear but skills/experience/knowledge is fine; work-product is not. Bring your sales know-how; not your Rolodex. Bring your software architecture chops; not design documentation; etc.

[Braggadocious]

>No-one (at least I don't think anyone) is suggesting that knowledge, experience and skills belong to your employer.

That's the whole argument. There's literally no other argument. There is no separation between "previous body of work" and "experience, skills, or knowledge." I think you missed the, "Prince had to change his name to Artist formerly known as prince just so he could continue making music," analogy. That's exactly what's going on here.

>But if I'm a video game developer, and I invent a new shading technique for video game graphics while I'm employed at BigGameCo (whether at home or at work)...

If you're a pioneer in shaders, it's because you've spent years of time and effort trying to understand the problems associated with this one specialized field. You are going to continue being a pioneer in shaders long after you leave your current employer, because that's where you are the most competitive, because that's where all of your knowledge, experience and skills are. To change fields now would be career suicide. You would no longer be a specialist. Your years of knowledge and experience in shaders would lose all value if you decided to dig ditches/whatever alt line of work you go into, and that's what these contracts are forcing you to do: brave a job market where you have no advantage for your time spent at your previous company.

Under these types of contracts, you're not allowed to move forward with your career trajectory after leaving a company. You would be building off your previous work that you did with them, and you're approaching problems with the same solutions you already came up with. That means your old employer owns the rights to all of your subsequent work. Same thing happens to musicians. Since every song they write is an iteration of their previous body of work, if musicians try to leave their record label and can be sued for the rights to every subsequent song they write. Prince had this happen and changed his name to "Artist formerly known as prince." to skirt around the contract. Ridiculous solution to a ridiculous problem. At the time I just thought Prince was being crazy. Apparently not.

I'm also not talking about what types of contracts have been enforced in the past, obviously these companies keep trying to use these contracts because there is precedent, but there's precedent for fucking everything in this country and I could write a historiography of court-ordered fuckery if need be. What im trying to say is that these types of contracts have been thrown out in the past for being unreasonable, and should all be thrown out in the future. This was not the intended spirit of any law allowing people to own "intellectual property."

[CydeWeys]

I don't know anyone who has a startup as a side project. This isn't as common as you think it is.

[wayoutthere]

There's a lot of grey area between "startup" and "side project". I do know quite a few people who operate niche cloud services that pull in a few thousand dollars a month. Certainly not enough to build a company around, but the $ per hour works out pretty well. I could see how someone might want to quit their job to work on turning their side project into a startup.

That said, nobody I know over 30 who works in tech does their "side projects" in tech anymore. We've all moved on to kids or hobbies that allow us to escape the tech world like music or painting.

[Braggadocious]

I think side projects over 30 will be more common pretty soon. Income inequality is getting worse and worse, other industry incomes are falling like crazy and lots of people are career changing to tech.

[stevenwoo]

I’ve had contractor coworkers get those sort of provisions in the employment contracts striked but they had to hire lawyers to examine them and this is in California.

[filmgirlcw]

Yes, yes I can.

I’m lucky my employer has a really fair moonlighting policy (basically, I can’t use company equipment for my outside projects and I can’t get paid to talk about stuff I explicitly learned at work), but many large tech companies assign ownership to any code you write, whether it’s a side project or not.