Engineer refusing to file/disclose patents

Re:Engineer refusing to file/disclose patents by smnrchrds on Sunday March 24, 2019 @02:40PM (#19477974)

> Even a picture painted would belong to their employer.

Taken at face value, it's much worse than that. All the family photos he has taken, that novel on the back of his mind he wanted to write, that poem he wrote for his wife's birthday, the all belong to the company now. If he made a personal sex tape for his and his wife's enjoyment, the company can request it and sell it online or upload it to PornHub at their sole discretion.

There is no way in hell I would ever sign such a clause, unless there is literally life and death on the line.

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Re:Engineer refusing to file/disclose patents by paulgb on Sunday March 24, 2019 @03:37PM (#19478307)

> that novel on the back of his mind he wanted to write

No kidding! I used to work at Google and we had an orientation session on the IP policy. I asked if it would apply to a novel and was told that it would (but that they would probably assign the copyright if I asked).

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Re:Engineer refusing to file/disclose patents by icelancer on Sunday March 24, 2019 @05:29PM (#19478888)

How charitable of them to "probably" assign copyright.

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Re:Engineer refusing to file/disclose patents by throwaway5r09 on Sunday March 24, 2019 @02:54PM (#19478047)

This made me chuckle. I’ve made a few sexy videos with my wife and just thought of my manager saying, “Welp, that’s ours now.”

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Re:Engineer refusing to file/disclose patents by faissaloo on Sunday March 24, 2019 @03:56PM (#19478413)

That sounds very prone to abuse...

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Re:Engineer refusing to file/disclose patents by avs733 on Sunday March 24, 2019 @05:08PM (#19478796)

And malicious compliance

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Re:Engineer refusing to file/disclose patents by harlanji on Sunday March 24, 2019 @02:51PM (#19478026)

All coding job offers in California that I’ve received have come with an appendix which invalidates such clauses. It’s a major reason to work in Cali, if I understand correctly. In practice, if I’m working for my salary then I don’t have energy to innovate on my own, beyond conference talk demos that take a few weekends max.

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Re:Engineer refusing to file/disclose patents by pmiller2 on Sunday March 24, 2019 @03:16PM (#19478170)

That’s because it’s against the law in California for a company to claim unrelated IP done on off hours with personal equipment. Don’t think they wouldn’t try it if they could.

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Re:Engineer refusing to file/disclose patents by ralph84 on Monday March 25, 2019 @01:40AM (#19480521)

This, along with non-competes being unenforceable, is why California will always have the most tech startups.

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Re:Engineer refusing to file/disclose patents by xucheng on Sunday March 24, 2019 @04:40PM (#19478617)

So the employer can literally claim the copyright for all of the employee’s speeches and DMCA them if so they choose? It seems that this can be argued as a violation to the first amendment.

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Re:Engineer refusing to file/disclose patents by yitchelle on Monday March 25, 2019 @07:20AM (#19481577)

That puts a different spin to phrase "I will give up my first born for...."

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