Apple is making corporate ‘BYOD’ programs less invasive to user privacy

Re:Apple is making corporate ‘BYOD’ programs less invasive t... by Xylakant on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @11:00AM (#20155993)

> 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 :)

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Re:Apple is making corporate ‘BYOD’ programs less invasive t... by sdoering on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @01:24PM (#20157490)

> 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.

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Re:Apple is making corporate ‘BYOD’ programs less invasive t... by Xylakant on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @02:08PM (#20157947)

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.

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