Me being in Germany and clearly not a lawyer. That said: I own all my intellectual property, of everything I develop in my free time on this device. And in Germany, at least as far as I am aware, these broad regulations some US employers try to force on their employees have been thrown out by court decisions. But not sure on that.

I would not work for a company that would try to ensure it owns all of what I do outside of company time.

> Me being in Germany and clearly not a lawyer. That said: I own all my intellectual property, of everything I develop in my free time on this device.

> I would not work for a company that would try to ensure it owns all of what I do outside of company time.

You might want to read the laws governing this, notably the "Gesetz über Arbeitnehmererfindungen" (https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/arbnerfg/) It's fairly short and clear. Work contracts often don't mention that because a lot of what you can invent is already owned by your employer by law.

Notably everything that can be patented and primarily results from your work or your or your experience at work:

    (1) Erfindungen von Arbeitnehmern im Sinne dieses Gesetzes können gebundene oder freie Erfindungen sein.
    (2) Gebundene Erfindungen (Diensterfindungen) sind während der Dauer des Arbeitsverhältnisses gemachte Erfindungen, die entweder
    
    1. aus der dem Arbeitnehmer im Betrieb oder in der öffentlichen Verwaltung obliegenden Tätigkeit entstanden sind oder
    2. maßgeblich auf Erfahrungen oder Arbeiten des Betriebes oder der öffentlichen Verwaltung beruhen.

You need to be fairly compensated etc., but the employer gets first rights. (and fairly does not necessarily mean market value)

The rules apply independent of which device you're using though. Compensation might differ slightly, but the rules around that are longer than the law itself :)

> a lot of what you can invent is already owned by your employer by law

I recommend § 18 and § 19 of said "Gesetz über Arbeitnehmererfindungen". They state that inventions that are clearly not done on the employers payroll (to paraphrase this) are so called free (you have to enable your employer to make that call and you could dispute him, if he tries to claim said invention) (§§18).

But you need to enable your employer to use said (free) invention with reasonable terms - but you dictate the terms (§§19). Your employer can dispute the conditions and a court of law then has to decide.

So clearly this law does not enable your employer to claim nearly every invention you could make in your free time.

At least as far as my understanding goes. But I might be totally wrong here. I am somewhat out of my experience here.

You should reread the part I quoted above. It defines the terms used in §18/19: It’s §4(2) https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/arbnerfg/__4.html it doesn’t talk about payroll or not payroll, it’s all about how related to your work assignment the invention is. The rules and regulations around calculating a fair compensation even grade on that exact metric among other things. So it’s essentially what the work contracts stipulate: inventions related to your work belong to your employer, even if done in your off time.

The problem in IT is that depending on what you do, everything might be related to a varying degree.

> And in Germany, at least as far as I am aware, these broad regulations some US employers try to force on their employees have been thrown out by court decisions. But not sure on that.

Would be interested to hear about specific court decisions!

In general, this topic is not quite so clear, even in Germany. For a contrary argumentation, have a look at: https://www.lieb-online.com/files/luxe/publikationen/Urheber... (covers both Urheberrecht and Patentrecht, 15 pages, argues seemingly mostly in favour of the employer, but that does not mean they are wrong)

Keywords to search for, if you don't have the time now to read it as a whole:

- Freizeitwerk / freiwilliges Werk (it's a difference! but just because you do something in your freetime it is not necessarily a Freizeitwerk, in case your job is to produce such works and it could be of use to your employer, this is arguably not the case)

- Beweislast (just because you say or mean it to be unrelated to work, does not automatically mean it is -- side note: the bigger your employer, the less you can know about what is in their interest or not)

- Anbietungspflicht (describes the case using work ressources / work time)

- Pflicht zur Anbietung (for the free time stuff which is not "totally unrelated to the interests of your employer" -- so "automatic transition of usage rights via contract" is indeed suspicious and likely to be undermined in court, but they have a say if they want it)

Sounds somewhat like slavery indeed. ;)

Isn't that the case regardless of what laptop you're using? As far as I can tell you should assume any side projects are Copyright (c) your employer unless you talk to legal first and make an arrangement (for each project).

See for example: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-pr...

No, what you do on your own time (not company time) with your own resources can't be owned by the company, because otherwise everything you do would be owned by the company, which is absurd; suppose I went to a friend or relative and helped him/her out by writing a simple script, does that belong to the company now? How about posts you make on HN outside of work (if you do it at work, that's... questionable)?

The possibility of companies disagreeing is why I keep my work and private life completely separate, and the online portion of the latter does not even use my name nor anything that could be associated with my "offline" identity.

> [S]uppose I went to a friend or relative and helped him/her out by writing a simple script, does that belong to the company now?

That's a good question, and only answerable by checking what you've signed and what the laws in your jurisdiction are.

Some of the agreements, even in the US, are pretty aggressive about grabbing as much IP from an employee as possible.

Please see the link I added. You should check your employment contract to see the exact terms of the copyright assignment clause you signed, but it's definitely very common to have to assign any inventions you make that are "related to your employers area of work", regardless of what hardware you use or if you do it in the office or at home.

Well who signs contracts like these? I mean really? And why? I really cannot understand anybody giving away that much of their live for an employer/the next paycheck.

Yeah - if I am really, really in a tight spot financially - for as long as it takes to crawl out of such a mess - ok. But regularly? Long term?

Help me to understand.

And I also do not understand how a company could find this morally acceptable to have this idea.

I mean is this really the norm in the US?

> Well who signs contracts like these? I mean really? And why? I really cannot understand anybody giving away that much of their live for an employer/the next paycheck.

The outrage is a bit funny, because that's actually the law in Germany. It doesn't even need to be in the contract. (1) And if you think about it, it makes sense: Otherwise every employee who finds something patentable during working hours just clocks out, goes home and invents it "on his own time." And that would be a problem for an employer, too. So the deal is "employer pays you, and gets first dibs on whatever you invent in the general area that the employer pays you to work in."

(1) https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/arbnerfg/index.html

As already answered on another comment. This law does not enable an employer to claim every employees (patentable) invention. Please read the text - especially on the so called free inventions.

This is essentially in line what the article linked and the post to which you responded claims: inventions related to your assigned field of work are claimable.

99% of people sign them. Almost everyone will barely read it. The rest assume that it won't affect them.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

I'd rather get paid more today than take a lower salary with the potential to possibly, if I'm really lucky, strike gold with my own invention.

Unfortunately it is the norm. (With tech companies)

AFAIK, despite your work contract, CA protects personal projects even done on a company laptop. It just can’t be done on work hours or with a novel tool provided by work.

I’m paraphrasing an attorney’s explanations so I can’t cite the code.

I want to be clear that my question relates to artifacts you produce on company-owned resources - not just in your own time on your own machine.

Legal precedence around IP ownership - when you've used company-owned machines - is far less clear.

If the machine is company owned then the designation is usually whether the artifact or area of work is related to the main course of work. If you freelance in the same industry as your employer, you may have a tough time proving the distinction. Most of these agreements are only enforceable, though, when there's an overlap of work area regardless of who owns the machine. If the company is giving the employee the ability to use the hardware for personal use then the point of the hardware being company-owned is irrelevant to whether the work is being done on behalf of the company and, therefore, owned by the company.

Fortunately, not in California.

Depends. California’s law only applies if you aren’t working in the same business as your employer, which means if you work for any large company you almost certainly can get in trouble with pretty much anything.