Re: "Prior Inventions" on employment contract

A lawyer wrote that paragraph.  I believe I might suggest to the company
that the paragraph be stricken from your contract, or they pay the price to
you for you to hire a lawyer to explain it to you.  If you end up in court
saying 'but their human resources person told me that it means ....." you
will feel the complete fool.

It would be interesting why that paragraph is there.  It sounds like they
had a bad experience or they are company looking to live off the bones of
their employees.


---------------------------------------------------------
Booth Martin   http://www.MartinVT.com
Booth@MartinVT.com
---------------------------------------------------------

-------Original Message-------

From: midrange-l@midrange.com
Date: Monday, December 09, 2002 11:05:52 AM
To: midrange-l@midrange.com
Subject: "Prior Inventions" on employment contract

If this belongs on a different list, please let me know.

I have a cd-rom full of programmer utilities that I've developed over
the years. I intend to fully protect my rights and ownership of these
utilities. I freely share the _use_ of these utilities in the shops
where I have worked. I am getting ready to sign a new employment
contract and it has a section for "prior inventions":

----------------------------------
Employee agrees that (s)he has no ideas or inventions or copyrights
made or conceived prior to the beginning date of Employee's employment
with COMPANY that relate in any way to COMPANY's Business or the
business of the Client except for such as are disclosed on Exhibit "B",
which Exhibit (entitled "Prior Inventions") shall be signed by COMPANY
if any such inventions shall exist. Any and all inventions, ideas or
copyrights of Employee disclosed or made available to COMPANY during
the term of this Agreement shall be disclosed on a non-confidential
basis and Employee agrees that COMPANY shall have an irrevocable and
free right to use such inventions, ideas and copyrights in any way
whatsoever except for such valid patent rights as Employee may have
obtained prior to the date hereof which are disclosed on Exhibit "B".
----------------------------------

The aforementioned cd-rom was created prior to my employment with this
company. Is it enough to claim "the entire contents of this cd-rom",
or should I print a file listing, or ... what?

TIA, Dan

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