| You're wrong. In the UK, if you develop it in your free time it's yours, as long as you don't use company equipment. However! It can be a clause in your contract to say sompany owns IP developed in free time, and is enforceable. Sometime there's often an extra clause saying unless an exemption is approved by the board (I assume to stop hirers informally saying 'oh don't worry about that', being legally valid). I have asked companies to remove that clause and had it removed. In another company a friend of mine had a small side project that was making money when he joined, and that company were fine waiving the clause. But those were smaller companies who were reasonable, bigger companies might not wiggle. |