Over the last few months, I’ve spent a fair amount of time building a tool that I’m reasonably certain I can sell (nothing novel, don’t get too excited) and I would really like to try. I know there is a customer base and I know it’s useful… because I built it to use myself. But I also plan to use it at work, that’s half the reason I built it. In fact, most of the company templates are just mine that I brought with me when I was hired.
While 90% of the time I spent building it was in the evenings, on my ‘own’ time… perhaps 10% of it was ‘company’ time where I had free time and spent it building this tool.
I’m 90% certain that my employee contract states any ‘inventions’ created are owned by the company, which is pretty standard in my industry. So I have a few questions:
- Does my employer own this tool? (I know you aren’t lawyers, but maybe someone has insight?)
- What is the risk of selling it anyway? What happens if I sell it and use it at work?
- How do I find a clear path forward (without hiring a lawyer. This is practically hobby-tier, I don’t want to take it that far)
Posting from alt account because I’m paranoid and want to retain anonymity JIC
Yeah, not trying to oversell what this is. It’s not an IP’able tool… but it could make money, money my company would probably prefer to make instead of me. Some of the things I’ve made in the past too, we’ve kept to maintain a competitive advantage (I don’t know how much it’s truly an advantage but that’s what we’ve done)
Yeah, but… what could your company actually ‘own’?
IANAL, but presumably if the idea isn’t novel, and can’t be patented, then anyone can make it. That includes you. They can’t own your invention because there’s nothing to own. You also can’t own it, either.
But IP comes in many forms. From your comments, my guess is you might have some CAD or other kind of engineering templates that you’ve developed. THOSE might be owned by the company.
From my life, I’m an IT consultant. I’ve built tools while working for other companies that I couldn’t bring with me when I left. That’s just how it is. But nothing stops me from re-developing those tools using the knowledge in my head (as long as it doesn’t step on the toes of their trademarks, copyright, etc.).
But really, you signed a thing that said they’d own your inventions while you work there. You willingly did this, of your own accord, and presumably this is the kind of thing it’s meant to cover. How much is your word worth to you?
I’d say the easiest thing is to have a conversation with them. Maybe they’d like to commercialise it (this is where 3M’s post-it notes came from) and cut you in, or maybe they’d be willing to put something on paper saying they don’t mind if you do. Maybe they say no… that would suck - but if it were me and I had developed most of the company templates, it wouldn’t make me feel very valued