Legal Question in Intellectual Property in New York

I have a question with regards to Invention Assignment clauses in employment contracts (especially with regards to California labor code section 2870)

"Prohibiting employee assignment to an employer of inventions that the employee developed entirely on his or her own time without using the employer's equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secret information, except for those inventions that either: (a) relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer's business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer; or (b) result from any work performed by the employee for the employer."

Within this clause, what does �is not related� to the company's business mean in precise terms?

Suppose the company makes windows software using C++ that specifically targets financial institutions in providing them financial data...and then a Windows C++ programmer that works for this company make a Windows minesweeper software using C++ purely using his own equipment and solely on his own time, will that be considered "related" to the company's business simply because it's also a windows software and is also written in C++ (ie. despite the fact that the program itself (minesweeper) is completely irrelevant to making financial software that provides data to financial institutions)? Ie. if that scenario occurs, will the company then have ownership of the minesweeper program source code?


Asked on 12/25/11, 9:22 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

Nancy Delain Delain Law Office, PLLC

You haven't gotten an answer to your question yet because this is very, very gray, to the point where an attorney would have to lay eyes on the contract language and parse it through the CA statute.

That goes beyond the purview of this message board; you'll need to hire an attorney to do this for you.

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Answered on 1/07/12, 7:34 am


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