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A comment on Some software cannot be used at Google. Parent comment

Re:Some software cannot be used at Google by lloeki on Wednesday March 21, 2018 @08:37AM (#16637482)
It is a widely held belief that writing computer code is an intellectual and creative endeavour (IIRC codified so in European law or something†), therefore it is not tied to a specific timeframe within which you work: you are very much able to think about and solve a work problem under your shower, that's why the corresponding intellectual property of that solution is owned by the company you work for, independent of the time of day you thought about it.

So to cover that, typically law basically defaults on granting your company IP rights on anything you create anytime while you're an employee, and should there be need to challenge that, it's up to you to uphold in court that project X has nothing to do with your company business or tech, or to ensure beforehand that your contract has special provisions granting you IP rights in known situations.

† At the very least this is also the basis as to why software is not patentable in EU, unless they are an integral part of a very concrete process that itself solves an issue (e.g say you invent an industrial process that allows you to synthesize molecule X more efficiently, and that process involves a bit of code as an integral and required part of said process because it is deeply tied to it in a fundamental way, then that precise bit of software can be covered by the patent of the process)

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Re:Some software cannot be used at Google by johannes1234321 on Wednesday March 21, 2018 @08:51AM (#16637562)
To extend let's change the field a bit: Imagine you are a scientist working in a lab, employed to develop new technologies. One day you're falling in the shower and scribble an idea for a flux capacitor. Could you patent it? Or the company? What if it happens in the office? If that makes a difference: How to prove? Most employment contracts (at least the ones I have seen) make the assumption clear, that all results of "software development" are treated as work for the company. Many companies than have ways to allow hobby projects info uelds different from the actual work (while that definition is quite unspecific and has to be decided case by case)
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