

Ask HN: How to Notify Company of Personal Invention - euroclydon

I am required to notify my company about any inventions that I "conceive, develop, or reduce to practice" and that I believe are exempt from being assigned to the company because they are not related to company products or R&#38;D, and because I developed them on my own time using my own resources.<p>My questions is: What level of detail needs to go into this document? Are there any good blogs or example letters to go by?<p>Thanks!
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alextingle
First of all, you should not have signed that contract.

Secondly, you should definitely advise them of every idea that you have, big
or small, but especially small. Start with the small ones. I'm sure that
pretty soon they will advise you what level of detail is required.

Keep all correspondence, and good luck. ;)

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bdclimber14
It's amazing how easy it is to avoid singing the IP contract. I've had 4
engineering jobs each with big name companies, and have never actually signed
it.

I've handed the stack of paperwork back unsigned, I've amended contracts and
initialled, I've "lost" that specific page.

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ig1
You should avoid misleading your company, that's just asking for trouble. If
you don't want to agree to a particular part of a contract you should be open
and discuss it with the company rather than trying to slip changes in under
the rader (which depending on your jurisdiction may be illegal).

Imagine what happens if your company gets acquired, and during the due
diligence the acquirer discovers that a critical employee contract is missing
vital IP clauses because that employee "lost" that page. You could end up
destroying your company.

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bdclimber14
I understand the last part, and wouldn't do this to a small team or startup.
This probably wouldn't work with a tight-knit team anyways. It's mostly for
big companies, working for "the man." Generally discussing this with them
won't be productive. I would do this though if they realized that I didn't
sign a particular contract. It is their responsibility to make sure I signed
the documents though.

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pasbesoin
I would be interested in further opinions on this approach. I've taken it at
least once. I didn't have any leverage with which to negotiate. OTOH I was not
doing any work that merited a "your life belongs to us" contract. It was
another form that Legal drafted and HR had you sign, pro forma (as it were).

I said I would need to review it. Took it with me, from my "Welcome to Big Co.
meeting", and simply never returned it. No one ever followed up.

As far as I'm concerned, I didn't sign it and therefore it wasn't / isn't in
force. Am I mistaken, entirely or to some degree?

Depending on the position, these days I'd take a more considered approach. At
the time, my personal cost/benefit considerations didn't seem to warrant this;
also, running somewhat similar questions by a personal attorney, with respect
to a severance package, had generated a distinct attitude of... indifference,
if not neglect, from said attorney, perhaps also influencing my attitude at
the time. (Not even a suggestion/referral to someone specializing in that area
of law.)

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Skywing
You know, I always sign these documents but I don't think I'd ever actually
tell them about anything I made during my free time if it had nothing to do
with what the company did. That's just me, though. I doubt that it's the
advised approach.

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alextingle
If you ever have a $1bn idea, they'll sue the shit out of you because you
failed to notify them.

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andymurd
I've been in this position a couple of times during my career.

Both times I sent an email to the HR department (always the least efficient of
any large corp) stating that I had created new intellectual property relating
to mynewdomain.com. I include the relevant paragraphs of my employment
contract and state that I believe I am compliant.

I never say what my invention does or what I hope it will do. I never say what
I projects worked on for the company. I never say what I want HR to do.

I've never had any follow up except for a thank-you email, but then none of my
ideas have become wildly successful.

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kirpekar
Don't bother notifying them. (I've been in this situation may times).

If the idea remains small and the startup/project has limited success, they
are not going to come after you.

If the idea is good, you start a company and eventually get successful, they
might come after you. In that case, you have one extra little thing to worry
about.

