RE: Intellectual Property

["John Locke" <mail -at- freelock -dot- com>]

Anonymous asks,

< is it worthwhile rocking the boat to have them change that clause, or
just leave it be and rely on it being highly unlikely that the company
would deem my own work worth claiming and if they tried I can't see how
they could win? 
>

I walked away from a job for a very similar contract clause...

Actually, it was the only full-time permanent job I've accepted in over
two years. I'm a contractor, and like it that way... I get too bored
staying at one place for long...

Here's the story: it was fall of 2000. After having a way too busy
summer, juggling projects from four different clients, my girlfriend and
I took our bicycles and rode around China for a month. When I returned,
it was the beginning of the dot-bomb time period. Three of the four
projects I had been working on were cancelled entirely, with a bunch of
people laid off. And the 4th didn't have any work for me.

After casting about for two months, I accepted a full-time permanent job
at a large company. It sounded like a very interesting project,
something challenging that I would learn quite a bit from. It was the
best commute to the office of any full-time job I'd had for many years
(downtown Seattle, instead of having to battle the traffic across the
floating bridges to the east side), and they allowed regular
telecommuting. Great.

The hiring manager, in the interview, asked what would happen with my
existing clients, and I told him straight out that I expected a bit more
work periodically, but would keep those external projects minimal enough
that they wouldn't interfere with my performance on this job.

So they make an offer, we haggle price for a couple days, then next
thing you know I'm in the orientation and I see the contract for the
first time. It's mostly okay, but it had an over the top Non-Disclosure
clause, a similar rights grab to the anonymous poster's contract, and
another clause saying that I would not do any outside work.

For the next 5 days, I worked for the company, meeting the rest of the
documentation team, learning about the product I was to document,
writing up a project plan, and even writing a couple of real documents
(like John Posada said in another thread, write something related to why
they hired you as soon as you can) to get going. Meanwhile, I was
negotiating with the HR director and their corporate legal staff to
modify the offending clauses. 

I talked with a lawyer friend about the rights grab, and he said it
would probably not stand up in court, but if I wasn't comfortable with
it now, I should negotiate it away. They told me that everybody had to
sign this contract, but they had never pursued anybody who created
things outside the job, and doubted it was worth pursuing in court
anyway. The outside work issue they said was up to the hiring manager. I
was about ready to just sign the damn thing and then do what I was going
to do anyway, not worry about it...

"Well, I know you told me in the interview that you would do other
projects on the side," the hiring manager told me, in what was to be our
final meeting. "But I really think this job is challenging enough that
it will need your full attention."

Thank you very much, but I'm quite capable of managing my own time... So
basically, they wouldn't budge, I wouldn't sign, they paid me for two
weeks of my time, and that was that.

I'd say it's not worth accepting terms you know could be a problem
later. I guess it depends on how hungry you are--but even if you're
hungry, if you can demonstrate your value to the company, negotiating
for what you want (as long as it's reasonable) I've found generally
increases the respect you get from the company--and I've worked with
several who have had no problem modifying their "standard" contract.

Last spring, the same recruiter that initially contacted me for the job
called back, having seen my resume floating around again, and asked if I
would still consider working for them. He apologized that the hiring
manager wouldn't work with me to find a solution, passed along
compliments from the documentation manager and a couple other managers
at the company, and told me about another position with a different
hiring manager. By then, of course, I had rounded up enough other
contract work, and since this company was averse to hiring contractors,
I turned them down...

John Locke
Curmudgeon-in-training
http://www.freelock.com


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