[ryandrake]

Like many things in this area, the answer is usually "You'll find out if you want to go up against an army of lawyers". The last three companies I worked for all claimed ownership of any IP I create, on or off the job, using company's equipment or using my own equipment. One of them explicitly called it out during the interview: You will have to stop working on open source or publishing side projects when working here. Can they do that? Maybe, probably not. It doesn't matter because I do not plan to bankrupt myself fighting their lawyers.

[thebradbain]

Regardless of the fact that California is much, much more strict in what they allow, to the point where oftentimes a company’s lawyers won’t even try:

Fine. Don’t fight, I agree, that would be an unfair fight and a waste of time/money.

The US court system requires a “good faith” effort to settle the issue before it enters the legal system. A cease and desist for example— whatever it is, you’d have plenty of time to simply decide it’s not worth it and remove the code once they take notice.

As it is, this is all no harm, no foul.

[lowbloodsugar]

IANAL: In California they cannot, unless it is related to the employer's business (so if the employer is Apple, Google or AWS, they probably can). In most states they can.