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[Sheb]

Again, playing Devil's advocate, if someone is working in R&D for a company, what prevent them from patenting something they developed during office hours for themselves and claim the did it on their own time?

[da_nang]

The burden of proof would lie upon the company to prove that it wasn't developed during his own time.

[scriver]

Most likely research logs. While I don't have any experience with of R&D's generally work, I would assume they keep those.

[SalmonGod]

Yeah... the devil's advocate argument here is based on a form of punishment without proof of crime.

My friend bought a car after a visit to my house.  I should be able to take his car, because he might have stolen money from me when he visited to help him pay for that car.  No, I don't need to prove that this happened.  I just get the car.

[Reelya]

Again, playing Devil's advocate, if someone is working in R&D for a company, what prevent them from patenting something they developed during office hours for themselves and claim the did it on their own time?

That's only theft in the sense that watching cat videos during office hours is theft of company-paid time. You should just owe them the money back from the hours you were skiving off rather than doing productive work for the company, not the value of the thing you created in the wasted time.

The guy using office time to develop his own game, and an identical guy using the same time to browse cat videos on youtube, have cost the company the exact same money. The only reason you'd punish the game developer worse than the cat-video-surfer (by hitting the developer up for the additional value he created) is pure spite - the idea that nobody can get ahead on your time.

[palsch]

The way game developers and similar usually deal with this is an expansive no-compete clause in the contract. Either the IP you develop in your own time is the companies property or it is a breach of your contract and you can be fired and sued. Whether such a clause would apply to non-commercial properties, or whether a property is commercial or not, is down to the lawyers.

[Sheb]

Reelya, I meant the case where the guy develop something for the company, say a game developer working as a developer and creating a game during office hours as he was supposed to, and then filing it as his own IP.

[scriver]

Again, playing Devil's advocate, if someone is working in R&D for a company, what prevent them from patenting something they developed during office hours for themselves and claim the did it on their own time?

That's only theft in the sense that watching cat videos during office hours is theft of company-paid time. You should just owe them the money back from the hours you were skiving off rather than doing productive work for the company, not the value of the thing you created in the wasted time.

The guy using office time to develop his own game, and an identical guy using the same time to browse cat videos on youtube, have cost the company the exact same money. The only reason you'd punish the game developer worse than the cat-video-surfer (by hitting the developer up for the additional value he created) is pure spite - the idea that nobody can get ahead on your time.

Not at all. The difference is that the company is paying you to use your time to create things for it to own. The video-waster is not creating anything and is as such just ineffective. The one who creates stuff during the time in which he receives pay for creating stuff for the company but claims it as his own is breaching contract. The only reason they pay you for your time is as compensation for them later owning the result. It's the same if I pay a carpenter to add a room to my house. That they built the room doesn't mean they own it, as I paid them to create it for me.

Finally, this isn't even in question. The issue we are discussing here is the company laying claim to what you created in the hours they didn't pay you to create for them.

[Max White]

Well, a possible solution would be a kind of commission work. For any IP that you work on, you need to sign off on the commission for that specific project. Your boss asking you to help out on something you haven't signed off on? You don't touch it. Company wants to claim they own the rights to something you made? Where is the specific contract you signed for it?

Although this kind of accountability benefits the employee, not the employer, so nobody would go for it.

[Reelya]

Again, playing Devil's advocate, if someone is working in R&D for a company, what prevent them from patenting something they developed during office hours for themselves and claim the did it on their own time?

That's only theft in the sense that watching cat videos during office hours is theft of company-paid time. You should just owe them the money back from the hours you were skiving off rather than doing productive work for the company, not the value of the thing you created in the wasted time.

The guy using office time to develop his own game, and an identical guy using the same time to browse cat videos on youtube, have cost the company the exact same money. The only reason you'd punish the game developer worse than the cat-video-surfer (by hitting the developer up for the additional value he created) is pure spite - the idea that nobody can get ahead on your time.

Not at all. The difference is that the company is paying you to use your time to create things for it to own. The video-waster is not creating anything and is as such just ineffective. The one who creates stuff during the time in which he receives pay for creating stuff for the company but claims it as his own is breaching contract. The only reason they pay you for your time is as compensation for them later owning the result. It's the same if I pay a carpenter to add a room to my house. That they built the room doesn't mean they own it, as I paid them to create it for me.

Yeah, but if the carpenter wasn't working on your house during that time, but instead was making some knick-knack for himself, could you honestly say "hey i was paying for the time, that's my knick-knack now", or would you just ask for a refund for the time he didn't work on the thing you asked for? Both activities are "carpentry": the thing you're paying for, in the same sense that a person programming the program he's meant to make vs a person programming something in office hours the company never would have thought of in the first place.

Finally, this isn't even in question. The issue we are discussing here is the company laying claim to what you created in the hours they didn't pay you to create for them.

Well, i was responding specifically to the hypothetical scenario presented by Sheb of that very thing. Take that up with Sheb.

Reelya, I meant the case where the guy develop something for the company, say a game developer working as a developer and creating a game during office hours as he was supposed to, and then filing it as his own IP.

Well then you've just moved the goalpost from what I was responding to, so my answer obviously can't encompass that. Anyway I hold to the fact that your own ideas are your own ideas. Most likely they're not going to be giving these low-level guys a lot of creative freedom anyway, they're going to give you very specific parameters to create the game they goddamn tell you to create ... they own the IP that you were meant to develop, and a reasonable effort on you part to follow the job instructions, not every single idea in your head. No more so than you'd own any and everything a carpenter decided to do on your time.

[SalmonGod]

Well, a possible solution would be a kind of commission work. For any IP that you work on, you need to sign off on the commission for that specific project. Your boss asking you to help out on something you haven't signed off on? You don't touch it. Company wants to claim they own the rights to something you made? Where is the specific contract you signed for it?

Although this kind of accountability benefits the employee, not the employer, so nobody would go for it.

This is actually the way things are increasingly going.  Employers prefer it, because contractors don't get benefits, overtime, or many other workers rights.  Outsourcing is a common form of this.

[scriver]

Hmm, yeah. I wrote that over the twenty minutes it took for me to finish breakfast, go inside, take a dump and then finally crash into my couch. I guess I lost track of the premise over that time.

Regardless, the first and nonbolded part still applies. You need to understand that when a company pays you to do things for them, they are in fact buying the results of your time. If the results are naught, they can fire you. If you try to keep the results from them, they can sue you. Just like I own the results of the Carpenter's time when I pay him to add a room, the company own the result when they pay you to create stuff.

[Leafsnail]

I guess they sortof treat it like a music contract - they're paying so that they can have exclusive access to your creative abilities.  I can see why the company would want that (if you did creative things on the side that could undermine their product) but it also blatantly stifles creativity, particularly in the music industry.

[Max White]

Well, in a lot of cases it is more like if you were in a company that made music for movies. They tell you about the movie and the tone they want, you compose the piece... Except there is also this clause in your contract that any other music you compose also belongs to the company, even if it wasn't composed with any movie in mind and was done in your own personal time using none of the company time or assets.

And that is why most music for movies is done on commission and nothing like what I described as above.

[Descan]

Yeah, we seem to be getting off on a tangent. The original point was that contracts say "ANYTHING YOU HAVE DONE BETWEEN SEPTEMBER 1998 AND OCTOBER 2005 WE OWN"

24/7, 365 days a year.

And someone said going back to this was moving the goalposts? :I