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From: clewis@mnetor.UUCP (Chris Lewis)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: Company/Employee rights to home developed MAC software
Message-ID: <571@mnetor.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 10-May-85 11:05:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: mnetor.571
Posted: Fri May 10 11:05:50 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 10-May-85 12:36:02 EDT
References: <2024@decwrl.UUCP> <255@gcc-bill.ARPA>
Reply-To: clewis@mnetor.UUCP (Chris Lewis)
Organization: Computer X (CANADA) Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Lines: 58
Summary: 

In article <255@gcc-bill.ARPA> brad@gcc-bill.UUCP (Brad Parker) writes:
>In article <2024@decwrl.UUCP> vantreeck@logic.DEC writes:
>>...told by my manager, who has consulted with the DEC's legal department, that
>>DEC owns all software that I develop at home on my MAC. And DEC has forbidden
>>me to put any of my software on the ENET or any other net...

>If you own the mac, and develope the software at home, and it has nothing
>to do with your work (as far as ideas), I do believe that your employer
>has no right to the software. If they own the mac, well, you owe them for
>the use of the machine, but I still think the software is yours.

Some major companies don't think that way (IBM, Philips) and some
Universities.  IBM, for example, has a hiring requirement that you
sign a paper transferring all rights to anything that you develop
that could possibly be used by or compete with IBM while you are
working for IBM.  So, even if you have your own PC, and you write
a nifty new program on your own time at home, IBM has the ability
(and I believe that there are test cases to prove it) to prevent
you from distributing/marketting it.  In fact, they have the right
to take it from you and market it themselves.  They will *usually*
pay you a royalty.  Only just recently has a department been set
up in IBM to determine whether they want or would be hurt competitively
by an employee's piece of software, and if they determine "no" to
both, they *might* let you market it on your own.  In addition,
all software written either at home or at work must carry the
logo "For IBM Internal Use Only" if it is sent around on the IBM
internal network.  While I was at IBM there was a lot of traffic
on the net about whether the "vetting" process ever did allow
employees to market something on their own.  (The answer was yes,
but the vetting process seemed to take about 4 months minimum).

When you are hired, you also have to specify any possible prior
conflict of interest.

The basis for all this is the assumption that you took advantage
of inside knowledge gained whilst in employment with IBM - and that
knowledge is the property of IBM.

I have had personal contact with the practises of Philips (or, at
least a wholey-owned subsidiary).  Several friends and I were
trying to design a "nifty new computer".  After this design effort
started, one of my friends went to work for Philips.  He mentioned
to someone about the project, and immediately the company proceeded
to try to get him to sign over all rights to it (up to and including
a VP).  The only way that this crap was stopped short of legal action
was the fact that Philips could not possibly impose this on the
people in our project that were not employed by them (and I believe
that our friend did disclose this possible conflict to the Philips
personnel dept.).

The University of Toronto has similar clauses in their student "laws" -
which aren't on the forms that you sign.  Most people at U of T
follow these laws.  I suspect that most other Universities have the
same rules.
-- 
Chris Lewis,
UUCP: {allegra, linus, ihnp4}!utzoo!mnetor!clewis
BELL: (416)-475-8980 ext. 321