The bigger problem is not the ideas that relate to your every day job... But Say your a Aerospace Engineer working on rockets and on your off time you write a scifi book, after your done you take it to a publisher, they publish it, and then your employer claims ownership over that book... and sues you
That type of shit happens all the time, and while that is an extreme example, there are all kinds of examples like a programmer getting paid to work on a billing system writes a childrens game for which the company claims ownership over... etc etc etc.
The idea that just because your employed means you should give up any and all rights to your brain is ridiculous...
Any examples of when such a thing has happened? I see how those clauses could be construde to apply to such a situation but I have never heard of such an extreme example in practice.
I am trying to find the case, it was a few years ago that I read about the case... it was settled out of court I believe so never went to verdict....
That is the thing with these cases, 90% of the time the result is exactly like the post here earlier today, the former employer makes demands that the employee cease and desist distributing "their" work and the employee having little resources gives in, it never makes it to court.
I agree there has to be a happy medium. My point is that it's hard to draw that line precisely with legal language. So, employers will do what's easiest for them, given that most people don't push back, and the employer can afford to lose the few that decide not to take it.
I think in such an edge case with such wildly divergent fields you could represent yourself - though if they are going afer you for a book you wrote it's likely you are published author and publishers have lawyers too.
Where it gets trickier is if you work as a devloper and they go after waht you have done in the evenings
That type of shit happens all the time, and while that is an extreme example, there are all kinds of examples like a programmer getting paid to work on a billing system writes a childrens game for which the company claims ownership over... etc etc etc.
The idea that just because your employed means you should give up any and all rights to your brain is ridiculous...
There has to be a happy median there somewhere