This question on Intellectual Property recently was recently posted in a group I’m active in:
I was working on a product idea prior to joining my current employer. … I decided to pitch my project internally to see if the company would be willing to let me continue developing it. … [I]s the project theirs now or is there some way to continue pursuing it externally since they haven’t expressed any interest in pursuing it?
There are many answers to this question — I’m a Free Open Source Software advocate and I am not a lawyer — and I see issues like this as potential mine fields. One of the biggest issues is, of course, as one of the other people answered in the group, what contracts did the questioner sign? This makes the question of ownership murky, and contracts may help clarify.
I would never do something like that with a product idea I had. Not without some kind of assurance that I would be able to continue with the product after I’d left. I–and many other software geeks–usually do that by publishing the base code publicly with GNU Public License. This means any and all changes I make while employed are automatically subject to the GNU Public License.
I don’t like the transfer of IP by contract clauses. At Oplerno we ensure that the IP — including but not limited to books; course materials; notes; syllabi; lectures and videos — of a faculty member belongs exclusively to the faculty member. And we’ve codified it into our contracts.
