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Without diving into the ins-and-outs of this, my current contract contains a claim like this. Well outside the US, and the UK/EU - it's in South East Asia. It
by katet 7y ago
Without diving into the ins-and-outs of this, my current contract contains a claim like this. Well outside the US, and the UK/EU - it's in South East Asia.
It says something like "on company equipment" and/or "reasonably related to skills/knowledge gained or applicable during employment with the company".
So I wouldn't quite quote this as being US imperialism. I seem to recall similar clauses in my previous contracts, but can't swear on it.
My take is the "skills/knowledge gained or applicable with the company bit": if its in my company's core market, then sure. If it's from training they paid for/provided (say - I don't know - Kotlin, if I didn't already know Kotlin) then OK.
But if I make a PHP/JS app, in my own time, in an unrelated market, then they can bite me for it. Obviously, in a more litigious environment, some people may not want to take that risk.
- masukomi 7y agothe problem with that is that you "gain skill" in their programming language when you work there. And you "gain skill" as a programmer...
- Mirioron 7y ago>reasonably related to skills/knowledge gained or applicable during employment with the company Let's imagine that you didn't know how to read and write before being employed at that company. If you learn how to read and write during your employment then the company owns rights to anything you write? And they own the rights to anything you make that requires reading too. This clause essentially tells the employee to go out of their way not to learn anything new while employed at the company. Does the company, by chance, offer training in very broad skills to employees "free of charge"?
- reroute1 7y agoLet's not imagine a ridiculous hypothetical where someone gets a job without knowing how to read. That doesn't make any sense as an analogy. Learning how to read is not any domain specific skill anyway, if you work for a pharmaceutical company they don't give a shit if you write, unless you are spilling company secrets.
- lovich 7y agoI don't know. Lots of people learn to write different kinds of code at work. I also think writing code isn't domain specific as I've never worked in the same industry twice over 6+ jobs. Seems pretty comparable
- testingitout56 7y agoYea but writing code that is unrelated to your industry is not an issue, like writing a book unrelated to your industry is not an issue. I don't see where the problem is here, you learn to code in language X and make an unrelated project in language X, there is no conflict there is no issue.
- angelbar 7y agoSuppose you learn Japanese at work ... can't you use that knowledge in the field?