[chrisbuc]

Prior to this the contract let the employer claim rights over all IP I created unless specifically exempted.

From this: https://www.russell-cooke.co.uk/insight/briefings/2020/intel...

"The general position under English law is that IP rights created by an employee within the course of employment automatically belong to the employer; where there is any doubt as to whether an employee or their employer owns IP rights, the relevant legislation largely favours employers."

"If material which includes IP rights is created outside office hours and/or using the employee’s private resources this may give rise to arguments that the rights belong to the employee rather than their employer, but that is not decisive. The fact that work is done outside normal working hours does not necessarily mean that the work is not done in the course of employment as, for many employees, there is often no clear demarcation of the hours of work."

"The key question to be asked is whether the work was the kind of work which the employee was employed to do i.e. whether it was within the scope of their employment. Could the employee have been ordered to do the work and would it have been a breach of contract for the employee to not do it? The terms of any contract of employment and job description will be relevant, however, these (and duties more generally) often evolve in the course of time and it may therefore not be appropriate to rely on them exclusively."

IANAL, but my reading of that is that if I wrote a novel about unicorns and rainbows, that wouldn't be owned by the company, but if I wrote software, it would.

[laserlight]

> Prior to this the contract let the employer claim rights over all IP I created unless specifically exempted.

Makes more sense now. Even in that case, I have many questions regarding the quoted parts in the article. Especially regarding the “demarcation of hours of work”, why would the burden of proof be on the employee? Employer is supposed to keep track of hours of work. If they cannot prove that employee developed the IP during company time, then it shouldn't belong to the company. But then, law and justice are very different things.

> if I wrote a novel about unicorns and rainbows, that wouldn't be owned by the company, but if I wrote software, it would.

I would say that software is too general to be applicable, and yet there's this anecdote somewhere else on this thread [0].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=32885772

[s1artibartfast]

It is pretty common in most US states to own ip developed outside work hours. The concept is pretty simple: by default, your employer is paying you for the ideas you generate, and this could happen at home.

Imagine you work in cold fusion research and you spend your days performing tests and reading papers. If you have a dream and wake up with a solution, this is part of what your employer has been paying you for, and the time of day is irrelevant.