Despite being called "intellectual property", patents and copyrights have little to do with each other, and the rules can be quite different. Furthermore employment rights are frequently modified by contracts and state laws.

Also despite both following "British Common Law", the USA and Great Britain have fairly different legal systems. You cannot assume that what is true for one is true for the other. (Nit: Louisiana does not follow British Common Law, but the other 49 states do.)

You will not know what your rights are until you read your contract, your state law, and talk to a lawyer. Even then you might not know, because there are many gray areas that don't have clear precedents. (If there weren't ambiguities, then lawyers would have nothing to argue about in court...)

Furthermore people who really can tell you are not inclined to do so, because if you misunderstand what they say, they may be liable for your misunderstanding! That is why you see people say "I am not a laywer" and/or "this is not legal advice". Because you are liable for giving someone bad legal advice. Even if the advice was perfectly accurate, but was just inapplicable because of some fact that the other person did not tell you.

I think the first article has a quote to the effect of "in absence of an agreement to the contrary". That was my point. If the contract says they own it, and you signed it, then they own it. Thus, check your current contract before volunteering to help a previous firm.

The wisdom of signing such contracts is a whole separate topic.

Hmm. I read that to mean that the contract might remove all the companies claim, but in abscence of that it gives the company some rights. I can see now however that was a rather naive or uptopian way of looking at it. /me goes to get a copy of his contract from HR and see what it says. This is a rather interesting if not terrifying discussion. Kinda makes me feel like i do when I hear "Homeland Security", big brother is watching and knows best and in this case big brother is also your boss.


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Eric Hodges

A contract generally serves to override law where it can be overridden (property rights can almost always be overridden by contract). It can do it either way, in favor of the employer or employee.

The interpretation of a contract is another thing. If your job involves programming and your employer tries to claim rights over a piece of music you created (Mmm, not via programming), the courts would likely interpret it not cover your artistic rights.

Be careful of looking at mixed sources of law. One of the articles references UK law, the other I'm not sure of. IP law, and legal interpretation, can vary in different parts of the world.

Oh, one more thing -- it's not just easy to threaten to sue, it's not really difficult to actually sue, either. It may be difficult to win many suits, however.

Practically speaking, this is why companies, which can bring resources to bear on suits (both personal and financial) often have an advantage over individuals who cannot devote significant portions of time and effort to pursuing/defending against suit.