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Comment by jstandard | Hacker News Reader

How does intellectual property work for published research based on approaches developed while consulting for a company?

For example, let's say you develop a novel modeling methodology for a company who hired you. You'd like to publish the methodology and give conference talks on it. Since you're hired, your work and the methodology would belong to the company as their asset.

Are there certain types of licenses applicable here? How about in the case of the article where researchers are compensated for presenting a talk on that methodology?

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>>How does intellectual property work for published research based on approaches developed while consulting for a company?

This is negotiable upfront for industrial research positions. You should always review your IP contract inside your job offer packet and battle HR/management hard on the rights to the IP and compensation surrounding it. Most boilerplate language assigns all IP rights to the company you work for with a maximum of $1 consideration paid for your work (to satisfy contract law if it is ever argued in a court), with acknowledgements or minor credit to you in the official documentation.

Needless to say, you shouldn't blindly agree to that unless your base salary is commensurate with such a loss of control and future rights of your work.

Thanks, that's helpful as an upfront approach. How about if a contract is already in place and the company is okay with the methodology being published, as long as they retain rights to it.

Is there a licensing vehicle that allows for publishing while remaining an asset of the company?

For example, Square built their Dagger library and uses the Apache license. http://square.github.io/dagger/ My impression is that Dagger is still an asset of Square, but you can use it as long as you meet the licensing requirements.

Is there an equivalent to this for a modeling approach or work done by a consultant?

IANAL. However, as an industrial researcher in CS, the standard is this. Once you patent your work, the company is okay with you publishing. There are exceptions. There is a story (no idea if true of not) that the folks who published the dynamo paper almost got fired. Some ideas are so important to the business that they may not be patented and just reserved a trade secret. All of this is negotiable and often done on a case by case basis. Most employers I've had have a standard reviewing process where the researchers submit the paper (to be submitted) and we get an approval that it is okay to publish. There is typically a checkbox that asks if you sought protection for any IP in the paper, etc.

Thanks, very helpful perspective. Once a paper is reviewed and approved, are there any rights around being able to present that paper at a conference?

I'm trying to understand what kind of legal transformation takes place one a paper on a non-patented methodology is released. I've skimmed the dynamo paper and it seems a good analogy in that it's about general database architecture concepts, rather than the specific implementation at Amazon. I might be wrong though as I haven't read it deeply.

For example, let's say you're the primary author of a paper and then later leave the company. Can there by any legal restriction preventing you or others who have never worked at the company from giving a conference presentation on that paper once published?

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