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Comment by moron4hire | Hacker News Reader

This is a big part of why I believe employment is not a good arrangement. They overreach because 90% of their workforce won't have anything worth stealing, so it becomes "standard policy" to require you to sign over rights most of your coworkers won't ever have a need to exercise.

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At my last couple of jobs, I actually redlined the employment agreement and put an addendum that said that anything I work on away from work on my own hardware is mine. They all accepted it, sometimes with a little back and forth (and in one case three years in came back to me saying "we don't have your employment agreement" and starting the process over again).

There was only one place I didn't have to do that -- Netflix. It's part of their standard agreement. It even went one step further and said that even if you use their resources, if you do it on your own time you own it, as long as it's not in direct competition with their business. It was a refreshing change for sure.

> There was only one place I didn't have to do that -- Netflix. It's part of their standard agreement. It even went one step further and said that even if you use their resources, if you do it on your own time you own it, as long as it's not in direct competition with their business. It was a refreshing change for sure.

My current company has this exact policy. It's one of the many reasons I enjoy working there so much. :)

Sweet! Who do you work for, if you're willing to share?

My email is in my profile if you'd like to send me a message. I'd be glad to share info with you.

I am very interested, may I ask you to provide a reference to such a clause? Maybe when confronted with a real contract it would be better to ask a lawyer, but having seen an example would be useful nonetheless.

http://imgur.com/ft3FiPR

I blacked out all the parts that change based on the company, because I'm not sure how much I was allowed to share.

The list of inventions is basically and thing or idea you had that you might want to work on. It's a good place to list any open source projects as well as any ideas you might be working on for a company.

I don't think that's what the parent is saying. The companies aren't misappropriating his private-time work, merely they own the "work for hire" that he invented while he worked for them.

Turning it around, it would be pretty much untenable if employees could file their own parents on work-related inventions done on company time with company equipment.

No, most invention clauses in employment non-compete documents cover anything even made during off-hours.

It's not just invention clauses. It applies to all intellectual property, including copyright (at least in NL), as long as what you're producing in your own time is related to your job.

Exactly how far "related to your job" extends is up for debate. Because of that, I have an additional clause in my employment contract that specifically states that any contribution I write to FOSS projects is mine to license and distribute.

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