Pretty sure I will be asking a lawyer, but I want to learn more words and concepts first.
A possible new job wants to own any intellectual property I create and wants me to declare anything I want to keep as my own. This seems normal in my industry as they will be paying me to do some thinking.
Issue is that I have a number of ideas I have been developing. I am going to float some of them as products in my own time, though this may be years from now. Most of these are outside the current market for the company as far as I know.
How is this typically handled? I presume I don’t need to have copyrights or trademarks prior and can just list tentative titles.
I am also a little unclear on the spread between “intellectual property” and “an idea I am playing with”.
Thoughts? Concepts to investigate?
Edit: I did Internet search this, but I have not found working keywords.
NAL, but have heard of these. Amazon was really bad about it a few years ago.
General rule, anything you do on company time/devices/premises is theirs. That is enforceable for sure, and it’s provable.
Anything you do in your own time is generally unenforceable, unless you still code/materials or something from them. Caveat being that it can’t conflict with your work. i.e. if you work for Expedia and start a new travel company you may be in an enforceable grey area, “They stole company secrets to compete with us”. However if you work for a game company and make your own game, you’re probably fine.
Read your contract, know it upside down and sideways, that’s going to be the guiding principal.