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Topic: Employer's IP - My Freedom (Read 3100 times) |
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Pake
Newbie

Posts: 3
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Re: Employer's IP - My Freedom
« Reply #5 on: Nov 7th, 2004, 7:30pm » |
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" It was not clear from you comment whether or not you wrote the software involved." Yes we did write the software and understand that to be their IP. Another point I forgot to explain is this company doesn't actually sell these ATEs. We use it internally for the services the company provides. A competitor would be one who provides the same services. I'm curious what anyone thinks about the fact that this system was built before my coworker signed an IP agreement. Would the agreement apply retroactively?
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Isaac
Senior Member
   
Posts: 3472
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Re: Employer's IP - My Freedom
« Reply #6 on: Nov 7th, 2004, 8:01pm » |
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Your coworker's agreement does present an interesting issue. There is no problem with agreeing to assign past inventions for consideration. The question is whether getting to keep a job constitutes consideration for an invention created before the agreement. The company's position with respect to your coworker is weaker than their position with respect to you. But perhaps not fatally weak. The problem involved with writing software revolves around work for hire. Even without a written agreement, the employer owns the copyright in software written by employees within the scope of employment. Employees who leave their companies sometimes encounter accusations of copyright infringement when they attempt to write similar programs for themselves or for new employers. It's more difficult than it might appear to avoid infringement in such a situation, and what's worse, it's sometimes difficult to get losing claims dismissed in such a situation.
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Isaac
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JSonnabend
Moderator Senior Member
    

Posts: 2251
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Re: Employer's IP - My Freedom
« Reply #7 on: Nov 8th, 2004, 8:40am » |
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I think Isaac is pretty dead-on in his assessment of the copyright issues. The solution is often to create a "clean room" version of the software; that is, hire software designers/programmers who have not had access to the original code, explain to them what the software needs to do (not how to do it), and let them write the code for you from scratch. Even if the code is identical to the original code, it is not infringing. - Jeff
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SonnabendLaw Intellectual Property and Technology Law Brooklyn, USA 718-832-8810 JSonnabend@SonnabendLaw.com
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