Just curious as to what you guys make of this clause in my employment contract.
The Employee hereby assigns to the Company with full title guarantee
all vested contingent and future rights in any works created by the
Employee during the course of his or her work for the Company including
all copyright, design right or other rights of a like nature throughout
the world, whether now or in the future created, to which the Employee
is now or may at any time after the date hereof be entitled absolutely,
for the full duration of such rights and all renewals and extensions
thereof together with all accrued rights of action in respect of them. All such rights will vest in the Company upon creation. At the request and expense of the Company, the Employee will execute such further documents and do all such acts as may be necessary in order for the Company to prove or defend its intellectual property rights, to perfect the vesting of such rights in the Company
and/or to secure appropriate forms of protection for the rights in any
part of the world. The Employee hereby grants to the Company an
irrevocable power of attorney to sign all necessary documents to give
full force and effect to the above clauses. The Employee being
the moral author of any such works hereby irrevocably waives the
Contractor right to be identified as the author of the works conferred
on his/her by Chapter IV of Part 1 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988 headed āMoral Rightsā and any other laws of a similar or
equivalent nature in any of the countries of the World. The rights and obligations created in this clause shall remain in force after termination of this contract.
From what I can make out this gives my employer sole rights to everything I produce during my time employed by them. Would this include code written by me outside of the hours Iām working for the company? Would it include code Iāve written outside of work and then used within their product?
Iām a little worried about signing a contract which could result in my employer claiming rights over my business startup which I am creating in the evenings. Have you all signed similar clauses in your own contracts?