The Inventions Clause in My Contract?
Hi all, looking for some help understanding a contract I am about to sign and would appreciate insight from anyone with a bit of experience here.
I am a graduating college student and have been offered a position as a software engineer at a startup. In the contract they sent me, there is a clause for Inventions. After reading through it, I am a little concerned if it would include any type of project I work on in the future, and I am curious if anyone could offer some insight into how they work & if I should really be concerned about it or not.
Let me know if you'd like to see some of the actual jargon, but I would also appreciate any other general knowledge regarding the topic.
Thanks in advance!
If it's written so that everything you produce while working there is their property, then do not sign it in that form. Contact their legal team and ask them to update the wording.
What's more typical is that it is written such that any work you do on company time and from company equipment is their property. That is legit and something to be aware of -- never touch your side project on your work laptop and be rigid about when you work on it.
Hi Jack,
I went through this same kind of thing. Most of the time the language in the contract is written so that anything you produce that's in the same vein of the company you're working for is going to be their property. This is mainly to keep people from ripping the company off I assume. That said, in my case, I was able to chat with the company's legal department when I wanted to launch a side hustle and after a bit of back-and-forth I got the official paperwork in order so that there'd be no competition issues.
Hope this helps!
This comment was deleted 4 years ago
This comment was deleted 4 years ago