Code Ownership Question 1

[benlinkknilneb]

Hi all,

I'm in the process of (singlehandedly) developing an expert system using Microsoft Agent (you know, the Office Assistant, or the little dude on the "Search" window in XP) technology as a UI. My question is, as you might have guessed... how can I find out who owns the code, and get my name in that slot? I'm going to be putting a whole heck of a lot into this, and I don't wanna give it away for just a couple of paychecks. I don't know if it matters, but I'm developing it on company time, on-site. Any advice?

Ben

 

[TonyU]

[tt] At work, we were recently asked to sign a legal document stating that all code produced for the company, in company time, was 100% own by the company providing employment and we were giving up our right to claim it as ours.

At first,"giving up our right to claim it as ours." bother me, but as some of us discussed it, we figured that the code will always be ours because we know it and can be reproduced at any time

My two cents...

^{There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to do it over!}

 

[xutopia]

Your contract probably states that anything you say, do or excrete belongs to the company if it is worth something to them.

Check your contract.

PS - many people make a copy of all the work they do for a compagny so they can do the same afterwards without as much efforts. This can be illegal in many places so you should check with your contract as well. Some employers don't mind it even if your contract states they own you.

Gary

http://www.xutopia.com

Haran
********************************

 

[benlinkknilneb]

...so my best bet for this would be to develop it on my own time, then? I think the way the contract reads says anything created on their systems belongs to them... so I could possibly develop this sort of "in parallel" at home?

 

[Tarwn]

Yep, but if your worried about it standing up in court than your code at hopme has to be different enough from the code produced for work that you can argue that it is a different application, not just an altered copy of the one created while on company time.

 

[benlinkknilneb]

Good advice, everyone... Have any of you gone through this before? I mean, trying to obtain ownership of something you did at work?

 

[TonyU]

not here

^{There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to do it over!}

 

[CajunCenturion]

Unless specified otherwise in a contract, the owner of the code is the one who paid for its development. It's considered work for hire, and it will belong to the employer, not the employee. If you write this code on company time, then the code will belong to your employer because they paid you (salary) for it.

Even if you develop this on your own time, you have to be careful that your employer involvement is kept to an absolute minimum. Do not do any of the work at the office, and I highly recommend that you keep a log indicating when and where the development was being done. Do not use any company data or company resources. Any link to the company weakens your position.

If it comes to push and shove, you will have the burden of proof to show that you did it on your own without any help from the company. Because you're a hired hand of the company, it's easy for them to claim you did it on company time.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[manarth]

My college had a similar clause - basically any IT work done at the college or as part of a college course belonged to them! (This being the sort of college that had it's students sign "Individual Learning Agreements" otherwise known as contracts...)

My class rebelled, and convinced the college to change it. There's no way they're getting rich from my work!

Your best bet might be to tell your employer about your private work, and request an exemption from the ownership clause. Get it writing, so both you and your employer are comfortable with the situation.

If you're doing this project for work, then it probably will belong solely to them.

To give you an analogy - suppose Adobe Photoshop was developed by one person. This person developed Photoshop in company time for Adobe, but mirrored the developement at home in parallel. Adobe wouldn't be too happy if this guy then starts selling his "home-developed" program at half the cost of Adobe's version.
This is why copyright of the code belongs to the company - not just copyright of the end product.

If you feel this code is substantially valuable beyond the few paychecks you'll receive, try negotiating a contract with your company alonging you exclusive rights to the code, but allowing the company an unrestricted site licence for use of the software.

There have been a few occasions where an individual has invented something in the scope of a company project - and of course the company claimed ownership (and patented it) - but a court subsequently granted patent ownership to the individual because the invention's value or scope exceeded that which the individual was expected to produce as part of the job.

Under Patent Law, the patent rights to an invention, even if it was carried out within a company, belong to the inventor. If the employee turns over these rights to the company, the company is required to pay "fair compensation" to the employee.

For articles on intellectual property issues, see:

http://www.fpcj.jp/e/shiryo/jb/0236.html

http://www.lawnotes.com/patent/patown.html

Some intellectual property policies for you:

http://www.trinity.edu/departments/academic_affairs/hb/research/intlprop.htm

http://www.at.vcu.edu/policies/ippolicy.html

http://www.lehigh.edu/~policy/university/ip.htm

<marc> i wonder what will happen if i press this...[ul][li]please give feedback on what works / what doesn't[/li][li]need some help? how to get a better answer: faq581-3339[/li][/ul]

 

[Provogeek]

Great info manarth, sounds like your in california. This is current cases in CA courts right now, but it is pretty big battle in some areas. Companies do not like it and want to change it, but it is only right that the inventor gets a cut of profits from his/her &quot;idea&quot;.

Did some work for law firms that tried some of these cases on both sides. It has been common for me to see programmers or silicon devleopers names on a patent along with a companies, unless there was a buy out. It's starting to get difficult to deliberate these since the pantent office grants pantents for stupid things now. So many companies just have to claim they had the idea, and the devloper only made the idea work. If they can prove it, the developer gets screwed.

As good as the information manarth gives, I don't think it has anything to do with your situation Ben. It sounds like you want recognition in the MS Agent code, which you don't really deserve since you are just making a tool based on someone elses work. Your work is not pantent material since you are not making something &quot;new&quot;, you are only devloping a different way of using it.

As others have said, unless you have a contract that states otherwise, the code is basicly yours and the companies. To play it safe and CYB, never use the same look and feel in a similar program for a different company.

From friends in the consulting world, there are two kinds of contracts they use. The first only gives the client rights to the end product, the consultant keeps all rights to the code. The second gives the clients rights to the code, but only limited rights, only code that is proprietary to the client gets a full rights clause. This gives the consultant two price ranges, and the seconde is about double to triple the end product only.

 

[benlinkknilneb]

Thanks for the input, Provogeek.

The MSAgent really is nothing more than a puppet in this case... essentially serving the same role as a glorified text box... thus I'm not sure what you mean by recognition in the MSAgent code. The program would function in the same manner if all I used were a text box... it just wouldn't look as pretty. The code I'm concerned about is the logic that goes behind him... how the user enters commands that are carried out by my program. This is by far the biggest project I've ever written singlehandedly, and I'm looking to develop it in a way that my AI can &quot;grow&quot; and learn things as he's used more. Those kinds of things are coming straight out of my head into the computer... they have nothing to do with MS Agent, aside from the fact that his speech bubble is how you see things on the screen. I was wondering if there was a way for me to own the code that *I* have written, even if I have to take the MS Agent out of it.

By the way... this program is not being used for any retail purposes; it's an in-house utility for a manufacturing environment. It's not like my ownership of the code could lead to competition between this company and anyone else, I just want to be able to use this for my own purposes.