[IP] employment contracts and inventions
Begin forwarded message:
From: Scott Alexander <salex@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: August 18, 2004 9:43:11 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: employment contracts and inventions
Having had to sign a range of employment contracts from the relatively
benign (if I develop an idea on my employers time or equipment, they own
it) to one's like that described below, I found this fairly interesting.
Scott
http://salon.com/tech/feature/2004/08/18/evan_brown/index.html
In July, the Texas Court of Appeals turned down software programmer
Evan Brown's appeal for a jury trial to decide who owned an idea in his
head: Brown, or his former employer. The decision was a victory for
business and a blow to the little guy, as well as an affirmation of
standard employment-contract law. It's also a cautionary tale for
creative-minded information technology workers.
Seven years ago Brown told his employer, DSC Communications Corp., that
he had figured out a system to translate data from old mainframe
computer programs into modern computer languages, an innovation that
would enable businesses to run their old software on much faster
computers. Brown says he had been wrestling with the problem since 1975
and finally, while on vacation in 1996, he figured out the final 20
percent of the puzzle.
[...]
By 1998, Paris-based Alcatel had purchased DSC. Alcatel continued to
assert ownership of Brown's idea, and after it failed to gain control
when Brown filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy, a summary judgment was
issued in 2002 from the 219th Judicial District Court in Texas in favor
of the company. Not only has Brown lost the rights to his idea, but he
is also liable for Alcatel's $332,000 attorneys' fees. Brown says he
will soldier on and is petitioning for review at the state court level.
[...]
Brown challenged the enforceability of his employment agreement, saying
that because his idea wasn't complete and needed more work and that he
had been developing the idea for many years before working for Alcatel,
it was not an invention that could be patented and it could not be
claimed by Alcatel. He also argued for a jury trial, instead of a
summary judgment by one judge.
[...]
What every employee concerned about protecting their own ideas should
do, the three lawyers wholeheartedly agree, is be very clear about what
they are signing in an employment contract. If they do have a
long-running idea, they should make clear in the contract that their
idea was developed outside the company.
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