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> The inane invention assignment clauses

This damn clause is the bane of my existence. It is the main thing stopping me from pursuing a side project because even if the project succeeds, I won’t own the rights to it anyway.

I’ll probably ask my employer to approve some side projects as independent work and have them excluded from their ownership, but I feel like even asking that question paints me as someone who isn’t dedicated to my full time job. I’ve been at my current company for less than a year so I’ll probably wait a bit longer before submitting the request.




I just put a line through it and my initials and signed it and handed it to my boss, he flipped through and signed and that was the end of it.

I don't have any commercial projects outside of work but the idea that an employer can claim ownership of something that comes out of my head into my machine in my time is bonkers.

If you want to own the other 8 awake hours of my life after the first 8 you have to double my pay.

I've done that on my last 3 employment contracts and no-one has ever even commented.


Yep, there is no reason to ever accept this clause. On the off-chance a company objects to you removing it, you don't want to work for them anyway.


If they pushed back on it I'd ask for a raise in salary due to the opportunity cost of not been able to do things on the side.

A broad exclusive license to and ownership of every line of code I write shouldn't be free after all.




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