I get some of my best ideas, those related to my job, in the shower.
Much of my value is in designing solutions to technical challeneges, not in cranking out lines of code.
This gets even more complex if I get an idea that builds on something I only learned due to my position, but itself isn't directly related to my role. If I could only have ever conceived my idea due to proprietary info, who gets the IP?
While there are grey area's companies have used these type of provisions in extreme ways like claiming they owned a work of fiction by an engineer that worked for the company.
For example do you believe it would be ethical for a company to claim ownership over a "hot new angry birds" game that goes viral simply because they have a IP clause in their employment contract covering the employment of that programmer who also works on their LOB ERP Application?
It should be in very limited to at minimum the type of work I do, one should not have to surrender their mind over to the company for their wages
Much of my value is in designing solutions to technical challeneges, not in cranking out lines of code.
This gets even more complex if I get an idea that builds on something I only learned due to my position, but itself isn't directly related to my role. If I could only have ever conceived my idea due to proprietary info, who gets the IP?