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Comment by creature | Hacker News Reader

I've encountered this clause in a few employment contracts. It seems to be becoming standard language, but you don't have to agree to it. A contract's a starting point for negotiation, not something set in stone. If you don't want your side projects owned by the company, then ask for the clause to be removed/amended.

One place said they couldn't amend the contract, but wrote that they had no interest in code I wrote outside of work. A lawyer friend said that was close enough to be a contract amendment and I needed the job, so I signed. Another place happily amended it so they only owned what I made on company time with company resources. Problem solved in an amicable way.

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> A contract's a starting point for negotiation, not something set in stone. If you don't want your side projects owned by the company, then ask for the clause to be removed/amended.

The problem was also that we had two legal documents, the contract, and the "house"-rules. The contract just stated that "The contract refers and includes the house-rules".

It would require a lot of rework for them to rewrite my contract so only the part about ownership of code was amended, but all the other house-rules still applied.

It was my first job after finishing school, and the place was nice, and I figured it wouldn't be a problem, but I was wrong, and it kept irritating me.

This has been pretty typical of my experience, I get a contract that says, basically, they own all things I create during the course of my employment. I offer changes to the subsection, that indicate they own only those things which I create specifically related to the problem spaces+ the company works in, with specific exclusions around any existing creations I have. Usually, in the contracts I've been offered, there has been a specific schedule to fill out for pre-existing invention disclosures.

Not once has any company refused such a change.

+ Worded appropriately, of course.

Yeah, many places will offer you exclusions on pre-existing work and offer you the ability to add to the list of excluded works later on. As long as you're not working on anything that's competitive they're usually fine with it. I won't take a job that won't allow me to keep working on my own projects.

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