Since you're apparently not a lawyer, you haven't read the employment contract and you don't even know what state this person lives in, telling them they can safely ignore a contract that they signed seems rather irresponsible.
The only reasonable advice to give here is the usual: Consult a lawyer who is licensed to practice in your local jurisdiction.
> I apprecitate that this is probably one for a lawyer, but wanted to get some thoughts on this approach for protect one's side projects.
Also, I wonder how useful "company working hours" is, when many companies push for more than 8 hours in a day.
When starting my company (which started as a side project while working for another company), I sat down with my boss and asked if he would agree to acknowledge in writing that the company will claim no right to IP relating to my side project.
I drafted an email stating that, sent it to him, and he replied in agreement. That turned out to be sufficient enough for me. A few months later I quit when my side project turned into a full time job.
There is a lot of subjectivity and interpretation when it comes to law and lawsuits.
If you went to trial, you would be showing the jury your employment agreement saying all IP belongs to the company, right before showing the jury a print out of the email saying the exact opposite. I think most jurors would side with the employee if the employer agreed to exclude IP assignment for a specific side project in writing.
That doesn’t mean your company can’t still sue you (anyone can sue anyone for nearly anything). But doing so costs everyone money (and reputation), so it’s rarely in the best interest of the company to sue employees - especially if you have a paper trail indicating your employer is aware of what you’re doing outside of work and has given you written permission.
All of the above assumes that the IP you’re creating is not something that would be competitive or damaging to your employer’s business. And that you’re acting in good faith and not misleading or somehow screwing over your employer in the process.
IANAL but I feel like there must be a better solution here? Maybe something like how the FSF requires a CLA on some projects, so any commits with proper --sign-off count as me as me giving permission to the company?
I think it's safe to assume that any such absurdly-wide assignment clause would end up unenforceable in a court of law and can thus be safely ignored.