[rdrimmie]

My current agreement requires that I explicitly seek company exclusion for any ip I work on at home. The key to this sort of implementation is that it is ridiculously simple. I write up a sentence or a paragraph or so, I bring it to the CTO (it is a small company so he is a desk away) and he signs it.

The easy way to think of it is sort of a right of first refusal, with the company being extremely likely to refuse anything. Basically I am going to him and saying "hey can I spend my work time on this?" and he says "no we don't want any part of that" and then it's all official and documented with signatures and good stuff like that.

I bristle at IP contracts, but the simple fact of the matter is that as an employee (especially of a somewhat mature funded company, bootstrappers may have a little bit more flexibility) I know that I'm going to be subject to them. Being up front about it and making it possible and simple to exclude my IP from the company's means that every few months I bring a list of fairly early-stage ideas to get signed off.

The other option is just to start with a "Hey, your IP is your IP and our IP is our IP." policy and wait until you're actually screwed over to change. There's value in protecting yourself, but building a giant wall around you for a problem that may never occur can also be extremely restrictive.