Should I take the same money to go back to the same job?
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@Dashrender said:
Yeah, this is where some universities are screwing their students over by claiming the rights of invention while students are enrolled there.
I wonder how well that holds up in court as the students would be then employed without being paid. It would violate a huge number of employment laws - you can't legally charge people to go to work, not providing healthcare coverage, not insuring the students, not paying minimum wage, etc.
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@Dashrender said:
I suppose an employee of a company owes anything created that's easily understood to be in the realm that that company is doing as belonging to the employer, but if it's outside of that, it should be the employees, not the employers.
That becomes difficult to define. And is a bit unfair. If you work for a company like GE, what do they not do? An employee there would legally have zero IP rights, whereas an employee of a company that does something really specific might get loads of rights.
I've had employers claim that they are in the "business of business" and therefore every company is their competitor and any product is something in which they were interested.
And legitimately, that's not as evil as it sounds (it's evil how they use that, but not in the theory of it.) Businesses really are generally opportunistic and go into whatever business opportunity that presents itself.
So think of it this way.... if you offer the idea to your employer and they decline to pursue it, you'd have a strong case. But if you feel any need to not tell them about it and intend to pursue it after you leave, I think you already know that you are likely violating the spirit of that situation.
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@NetworkNerd said:
I did not see anyone throw out the option of just doing some consulting work on a part-time basis for the old company. Is that possible as a temporary option? Tell them you will work X hours at your desired rate (remotely, of course), and give them a specific time period for which you will consult. So to some degree it would help both parties as long as you feel you will not jeopardize meeting your responsibilities at your current job. The old place may want someone full time, but you would at least be making an effort to help.
I did consulting work for the Business partner of my old company before and they can call me anytime if they need me.
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I see what you're saying there Scott, but if that's the case, then very few if any ideas would ever be privately owned anymore and no new businesses would spring up, because what sane business wouldn't take your idea say thank you very much, and oh, by the way you can't pursue this on your own anymore, and then just toss it in a drawer?
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@Dashrender said:
I see what you're saying there Scott, but if that's the case, then very few if any ideas would ever be privately owned anymore...
No, there is a big gap between what could be legally leveraged and what is leveraged. Just because the law might support it doesn't mean that companies would enforce it. I have seen companies pull this and the obvious effect happened - everyone skilled or able to get another job did so, immediately. They lost their staff nearly overnight. Having the right to protect yourself does not imply that you will use it maliciously.
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@Dashrender said:
.... and oh, by the way you can't pursue this on your own anymore, and then just toss it in a drawer?
Once they toss it in a drawer they'd struggle to protect their interest in court. They would need to pursue it to have a clear legal argument. They'd have zero means to show that you pursuing it affected their interests if they were purposely not pursuing the idea.
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@scottalanmiller said:
I wonder how well that holds up in court as the students would be then employed without being paid. It would violate a huge number of employment laws - you can't legally charge people to go to work, not providing healthcare coverage, not insuring the students, not paying minimum wage, etc.
It has nothing to do with employment. The students are generally using the university resources to do the work. Most universities have clear policies in place stating that they retain some rights to a patent because of this.
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@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
I wonder how well that holds up in court as the students would be then employed without being paid. It would violate a huge number of employment laws - you can't legally charge people to go to work, not providing healthcare coverage, not insuring the students, not paying minimum wage, etc.
It has nothing to do with employment. The students are generally using the university resources to do the work. Most universities have clear policies in place stating that they retain some rights to a patent because of this.
That would make sense, if the university did not charge the students for access to the equipment or if that was always the case in situations where this would come up. If students are making software or writing a book or something, it must be very hard to claim. If students are doing research that leverages tons of university sponsored equipment, okay, I can see that.
So physicists, for example, should be heavily affected but software engineers basically not at all. But given that students have paid for the access, that seems to be a conflict of interests. Imagine if other businesses worked that way - Microsoft would own everything written in Word, Oracle would own anything storage in a database, etc. because they own the IP behind the software you've paid to lease.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
I don't think I've ever had a contract that prohibits moonlighting.
I certainly have. Nearly any salary job in the US does so sort of by default because salary implies "full time" meaning your time is not your own.
I don't pretend to understand the crazy US legal system. In the UK, I don't think "implies" would be a legal defense in an employment tribunal. It's either in the contract or it isn't. Whilst I don't know about the US legal system, I have some knowledge of US blues, and the number of people singing words to the effect of "I've been working two jobs just to pay the rent" suggests it's fairly common to have more than one employer there. Are those blues singers writing about hourly workers rather than salaried?
I reckon around a quarter of the people I work for have second jobs of some description. I believe my contract states I have to inform my employer of a second job and I obviously wouldn't be able to open myself to any conflict of interest, such as working for a competitor.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you work for both a bank full-time and NTG part-time?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I don't pretend to understand the crazy US legal system. In the UK, I don't think "implies" would be a legal defense in an employment tribunal. It's either in the contract or it isn't.
The general claim is that it is in the contract through implication of the salary since that is for full time. If you can work somewhere else too, it isn't all of your time.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Are those blues singers writing about hourly workers rather than salaried?
Well yes, of course. Blue collar work is hourly. You never hear doctors or lawyers singing the blues about working two jobs.
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I got the stethoscope blues...
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you work for both a bank full-time and NTG part-time?
Both hourly. Bank wasn't able to pay me enough to move me to salary. Literally, we had contact negotiations and they were never able to approve a number to compensate me for switching to salary. So they had to keep me hourly.
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So actually that is a great example - no one at the bank was allowed to work other jobs (unless the bank approved them which they would never do since everyone was paid to be on call and so clearly another job could never happen) but as I was hourly, they had no means of complaining.
