ahh. what's mucking up the works is this other clause they have that makes it sound like anything you made before employment counts. but this is how it counts, from my reading:
if i make widgetX and patented and trademarked it or write an article that i own the copyright on, and if i repurpose widgetX or article in any way while in the employ of the company, then widgetX and article are now owned by company.
we have to provide a list of everything we think we owned prior to employment, as well as any "inventions" etc that we've since made but are not something we made on company time. and people are like, why? why do they care?
which doesn't seem to be a big deal to me. they are giving warning: don't give us your repurposed shit and then expect you own it later. we do. don't try to sue us if we end up making money on that repurposed article. we own it and any claim you might have had, you're giving away and transferring ownership, patent, trademark, and copyright to us. thanks!
message: never give em repurposed stuff you think you own. if you want them to have it, don't repurpose on their time. off to sell it to them!
the non-compete is pretty straightforward: don't try to get hired or help anyone else get hired by one of our competitors for 1 year after termination.
this is a problem because company is constantly buying out other small companies. they own stuff people never heard of. i could be trying to get hired by someone they consider a competitor, simply because i have no idea they own some company that's sort of languishing. i could discover say, that i suspect most of their business is about everything to do with washing dishes, and never know that they have some little rinky dink thing that is all about vacuuming rugs. i go to work for a competitor of the vacuuming rugs subsidiary and i'm in breach of contract. and, of course, i have to pay all attorney fees.
do you think that one thing they could do is hire an attorney, at their expense (our choice), to collectively tell us what's up with it? it would go a long way toward keeping a little peace at work, cause the fact is, a lot of people are horked off about this, because they don't understand it and have all kinds of wild ideas. e.g., they think that, if they have a company on the side that's about web and graphic design, then the employer will sue them down the road.
the other thing that scares them is the remedies section that if you do or they get wind that you might do something to breach contract, then they cannot possibly put a price tag on the damage it will cause and, therefore, they can put a restraining order on you without warning.
obviously, they want to be able to slap a restraining order on your freedom of speech immediately without having to show a judge that you are harming them financially in order to get said restraining order. and, as i understand it, it's pretty hard to get such a thing if it limits someone's ability to make a living. hence the eager desire to get you to give it all up now!
and its slaying me because of the conversation -- snarky and derogatory -- about how the company is such a loser for always going open source! the irony. they are going open source with the supposedly crappy open source products and slapping all these ip agreements together.
why i am not at all convinced open source will change thing. and even more convinced when you think how many people are reading the scary all caps about limiting their freedom of speech and are upset by the restraining order thing and they're not really getting why its scary. i mean: the real ramifications, the real facts of the world they are living in.
oh a whole 'nother conversation, that.
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