If your employed by the company on a salary/full time/part time basis, then the company owns it. It comes hand in hand with being an employee.
If your contracting to them, then you own it. You are your own employee thus anything you build is yours, unless it is stipulated in your contract terms that what ever you build for them, the IP is the property of the company contracting you. The copyright laws state that the creator has copyright and IP. If your working for yourself then YOU are the creator. If your employed, not contracted, employed by someone else to build it, then the employer is the creator, even though you are physicaly doing the work, the employer is the creator. Now if you take it and change it atleast 10% (i think thats right), then the product you have is different enough to be classed as not the original product and no longer falls under the above senario, and would be classed as yours. The issue with this is, if you have built it in the first place, you basically have to change your R & D to be able to do it, which is a pain. Its like saying "Your allowed to walk, but you have to walk 10% differently than everyone else" after you have spent the last 20 yrs walking the way you do. Steve -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Chad Renando Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2005 9:54 AM To: CFAussie Mailing List Subject: [cfaussie] OT: IP Ownership Hypothetically speaking... So you're building this really clever application for this manufacturing company you work for. The commission for them is to build a system to help them manage their business. Now you and your boss have been chatting, saying how cool it would be to build something that anyone can use. The boss, he indicates what he needs for the company, and gives general opinions on what it should do. You, you're working from home, building the framework, all the code and defining the functionality. Company pays you for 32 hours per week, your putting in 50 to 60, plus have put a few grand into it in widgets and looking to work through a few holidays. The program is about 12 months from going to market and going through a framework rebuild in preparation. Question: Who owns it? Do you leave the company now and go on the Dole to finish? Chad who wonders if they'll think he's talking about his situation --- You are currently subscribed to cfaussie as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Aussie Macromedia Developers: http://lists.daemon.com.au/ --- You are currently subscribed to cfaussie as: [email protected] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Aussie Macromedia Developers: http://lists.daemon.com.au/
