Re:Apple lawsuit tests if an employee can plan rival startup...
by bigiain on Friday January 24, 2020 @01:07AM
(#22135789)
This was complex. The acquired company was in the US, but not in CA. The university was in Australia, and yes they also claimed ownership (which had already been agreed as part of starting the PhD). It's quite likely the work on the PhD prior to the Oracle acquisition was done on the original acquired companies equipment (and probably time as well).
It was without doubt a time wasting and frustrating shitfight ensuring he was "allowed" to think about his PhD topic after being acquired by Oracle (although he had enough equity to have done quite nicely out of the deal anyway, I suspect...)
That being said, this story doesn't make sense unless it takes place outside of CA. Work for a PhD thesis is generally done on university grounds, giving the university the putative right to the underlying IP. A third-party employer like Oracle would have to duke it out with the university to claim ownership, no matter what their employment contracts said.
OTOH, if work for the PhD was done using Oracle facilities and equipment, then it makes perfect sense for Oracle to investigate IP ownership since many PhD thesis projects go on to become valuable commercial products.