Re: intellectual property contracts

Subject: Re: intellectual property contracts
From: Salette Latas <slatas -at- EMAIL -dot- MSN -dot- COM>
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1998 08:38:54 -0600

I very much agree with Sue Ellen that any work performed on your own time
should remain yours, and the wording on the contract should be clear in that
regard.

Also, a prospective employee can negotiate keeping the rights to
intellectual property already in progress. At my last company, for example,
we hired someone who had developed a software utility, and was going to work
for us developing similar products. He made it very clear in his contract of
employment that rights to the original software utility remained his.

You might want to check to see if there is legal assistance available
through the university to your students, or if you could arrange for a local
intellectual property lawyer or law professor to address these issues to
your class.

Salette

Sue Ellen Adkins wrote:

>Rather than having ANY work performed belong to the company, I think only
>work done at the office or on company-assigned projects should belong to
>the company. If someone writes a best-seller mystery, why should it belong
>to the employer?

Sue Ellen

Karen Lunsford wrote:
> A member of the BIZCOM list suggested that I forward a query to you
>that
>I've received from my students. I teach a business & technical writing
>course, and most of my students this semester are graduating engineers
(civil,
>environmental, computer, and more) or science majors (esp. biology). I do
not
>know how many students, if any, are applying for technical writing jobs per
>se,
>but they are applying to companies for whom they will create products and
>documentation. Those offered jobs are often being asked to sign a contract
>that says that any work they do belongs to that company. I know that this
>is a
>common practice. The question, though, is whether there are any phrases or
>clauses they should look out for that they should not agree to unwittingly.
>In some cases, students weren't entirely sure what they were being asked to
>sign (I know, you should never sign something you don't understand.)
>
>They were also concerned whether they would even have the option of
>negotiating over these contracts--their concern was that if they raised
>questions, the company might rescind the job offer.
>
>My advice to them was to ask people in their fields about these contracts
and
>practices--I don't know the answers. But I'd like to learn more. Do you
>know of
>anything that students should be aware of? Do you know of any
>articles/resources I could read to learn more?
>Many thanks,
>Karen Lunsford
>klunsfor -at- uiuc -dot- edu


Sue Ellen Adkins mailto:sea -at- netcom -dot- com


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