Find a lawyer, ASAP, that specializes in employment and / or IP. This is a legal issue and you need to solve it with people that know the law. Talking, signing, admitting things, etc, only hurt you.
Depending on your country and state, as well as your employment agreement, there are a lot of impactful variables. Intuition and personal relationships are not going to help you solve this issue, especially, absent knowing the law and your position.
Listen to this person. The people telling you to talk to your employer are giving you terrible advice. You can still do that after spending 30 minutes with a lawyer, but you can't take back anything you say before you talk to a lawyer.
Always always always talk to a lawyer. If your dog walker (at the peak of their career) friend was like “I need a website” you wouldn’t be like “learn JavaScript” you would say find a programmer. If I had 10 dollars for every time I had to spend weeks convincing an engineer friend to talk to an attorney and then when they finally did it got dealt with in 30 minutes... Lawyers are just “full stack law architects” do your self a favor
I find kneejerk advice to consult lawyers for anything that concerns the law frustrating for two reasons:
1. It never seems to be accompanied with advice on how to find the appropriate kind of lawyer.
2. It almost always seems to ignore the fact that lawyers are expensive. Sure, there are times when that cost is warranted, but I don't think it is right to ignore it. For example, in this case, it is probably only worth consulting a lawyer if the amount of compensation on the line is significantly more than the amount the OP would pay the lawyer. And what if the person you are advising can't afford a lawyer?
Also, concerning your metaphor, I would not just immediately say "find a programmer". I would find out what kind of website they wanted, then depending on their technical skills and what they wanted (and how close a friend they are) I might teach them how to make a website themselves, or point them toward more user-friendly tools to create websites. I'd only suggest they hire a web designer if they needed something really complicated or didn't have the skill or time to learn how to make a website themselves.
If you have a medical problem, you go to a doctor. If you have a legal problem, you go to a lawyer.
If you can't afford a lawyer you might as well roll over right now because that will be the end game.
The idea that some advice given in an online forum would reduce the need for finding a lawyer is akin to taking medical advice from a forum. You have no idea what the qualifications/experience/jurisdictions are of the people giving you advice so it might be good/neutral/detrimental.
Get a lawyer, one that specializes in IP and if possible to find those skills in one person as well as in employment law in your place of residence.
In the UK, most of my lawyer friends would tell you that lawyering up is the last course of action you want to take, as it tends to make issues more complicated, expensive and combative, though you might want to be careful what you admit / agree to.
There's a huge difference between going to litigation and just asking a lawyer what your legal position is (which needn't take too long or be too expensive) so you know the rough shape of what your 'worst case' looks like. Most businesses are reasonable and willing to do what's 'fair' even if that goes beyond what they might be legally required to do because employee goodwill is worth a lot to them and the cost to them of litigation is also high. But they will also have an idea of what their legal position is and that will inform their idea of what 'fair' is. A good lawyer will tell you what they'd expect you to be able to negotiate commercially and tell you to try that first.
Your employer doesn't even need to know you consulted a lawyer.
I agree with all that, the question is whether or not you want to get your way or roll over. If you want to roll over you can do so without consulting anybody, if you want to get your way you will need to figure out what your options are going forward and that will include talking to a lawyer.
Roll over isn't the only alternative to lawyer. OP could always just say "no" and see what happens. Maybe lawyers come in to play eventually, maybe they don't.
See that's why you talk to a lawyer first. They could let you know what the possible forks of 'see what happens' are. There might be angles there that are detrimental to the OP and it would be good to be aware of those up front before doing things that can't be undone, such as saying 'no'.
* OP is in the wrong and employer can't afford to pursue further. OP loses a lot of reputation as word spreads.
* OP is in the wrong and employer can't afford to pursue now. Five years down the line, when Oracle acquires employer, OP is sued for five years of damages.
* OP is in the right, but employer's lawyer crafts a very intimidating and compelling legal letter. OP backs down, having blown the relationship with the lawyer, loses rights, and is fired two months later.
It's helpful to be able to say "no" with conviction if one is right, or not press an issue if one is wrong.
It's not "lawyering up" but understanding the options available to you, your rights in the situation, and the potential consequences of all of it. You never even have to tell anyone that you spoke to an attorney.
> lawyering up is the last course of action you want to take, as it tends to make issues more complicated, expensive and combative
Not sure if the incentives are the same in the UK, but in the US, most lawyers retained in matters like this work for the client.
In that lawyers advise, the client decides, and then the lawyers attempt to realize the goal the client has chosen (if they decide to keep working for them).
Most people in the US seem to look at legal counsel as "Do what the lawyer says," when it's actually "listen to what the lawyer says, ask about alternatives, and then choose the course you want to take."
Or as I've heard it explained: a lawyer's default is to counsel the courses of action that will allow them to win a hypothetical jury trial two years from now.
When in reality, most things never get there, and some optimal courses of action for trial are antagonistic in a pre-trial context.
I mean you're right, but just stating your position usually actually makes this sort of stuff go away before anyone involves a lawyer, regardless of what the law (or precedence, as tends to be more important in the UK) suggests.
For the record, I've used solicitors before and it was a ball-ache. The first thing they tell you is the judges want you to have at least made an attempt at discourse before you can go to court.
> In the UK, most of my lawyer friends would tell you that lawyering up is the last course of action you want to take, as it tends to make issues more complicated, expensive and combative, though you might want to be careful what you admit / agree to.
In the UK you're entitled to 1 hour of free legal aid, so it's hardly expensive to consult with one who can direct you to the right person and place.
That really depends on how you define "lawyering up" - I'm not saying he should hire a lawyer and run all communications with his company through the lawyer moving forward. I'm just saying have a conversation with someone who understands the legal issues at hand here, then make an educated decision on how to proceed. He can always still have a friendly negotiation with his company after talking to a lawyer.
> ...is akin to taking medical advice from a forum.
Listening to doctors instead of carefully reading forums would have probably left me seriously crippled. Doctors hold no real liability, nor do they have any real expertise outside their (very narrow) problem domain.
There is no substitute for doing your own research if you want something done right.
As for doctors not having real expertise outside their (very narrow) problem domain: that's precisely why you want to see them if your problem is in that narrow domain.
This has been my experience over the last two years. When things get limited to a preset problem that doesn't fit the reality. The system has no mechanism in place when things go outside of the norm or expected.
Finding expert doctors and relaying updated information to family doctors doesn't work too well either.
And yet, if your arm was broken, I bet you'd see a doctor. An IP disagreement with an employer is an acute, not a chronic condition. When you don't have years to acquire the knowledge yourself, you go talk to someone who already has.
> If you have a medical problem, you go to a doctor.
No, if I have a medical problem _that is serious enough that it is worth the cost_ I go to a doctor. I don't go to the doctor for every cold or headache I get. Granted the OP is actually a case that might be worth that cost, but I've seen similar advice for much smaller things. I mean, I've asked questions about IP for my hobby open source projects, from which I don't expect to ever get a penny, and been told to get a lawyer. Or in this case, say compensation was off the table, is keeping ownership of the project worth hundreds or thousands of dollars for consulting a lawyer? Maybe. Only the OP would know that. And even after consulting a lawyer it's hardly a sure thing.
I'm not saying you should take legal advice from forums. My problem is with the "Always always always talk to a lawyer." Maybe you have enough money to talk to a lawyer every time you have a legal question and see a doctor every time you have any kind of malady, but not everyone does.
And I guess part of my complaint is just that such an important service is so expensive. It leads to a situation where the well off can hire lawyers to consult them on things like employment contracts, but those with less money can't, which makes it easier to exploit them.
It's sometimes okay to get legal advice from a forum, but in this context, someone needs to review:
1) The employment agreement
2) Understand the degree to which the specific project overlaps with the employer's business
3) Etc.
That takes a conversation you don't want to have online.
But yes, I definitely to seek legal advice from forums, Nolo books, and similar. Self-serve law is not a bad idea in most cases, despite advice to the contrary. Just not in THIS case.
If this isn't a situation to consult a lawyer on, then I don't know what is. He needs an IP lawyer with notions of employment law of the jurisdiction he's in.
If a company wants to formally acquire the rights to the IP.. it's safe to say it's worth something.
Having gone through this myself, I agree with #1, it’s sometimes hard to find the right lawyer. But I guess that means start looking now.
Your #2 reason is tricky because individuals who need the advice to seek out a lawyer already don’t understand the value of having a lawyer, so they have no way to gauge the financial cost of hiring one. That makes a lawyer seem very expensive, when in reality sometimes the risk of not having one is much greater than the cost.
A few years ago I had a side project I wanted to turn into a company, but not enough money to do it full time. So I applied for a job. The employment contract they wanted me to sign had a non-compete that was vague enough that my side project would be in conflict with my job.
I was very worried about spending $2k to hire a lawyer to write an exclusion clause into my employment contract. It seemed like a lot of money to me. But I did it, and for the money I got a single paragraph of text that excluded my company from ever being considered “competition”. (Actually the real value was not the text, it was that my employer knew the text was written by an employment lawyer, so they accepted it and didn’t push back.) Later I left that job to start my own company, and then sold it a few years after that. Without the clause, I could have risked the entire thing. In retrospect, it was some of the best money I ever spent, worth every penny.
The problem is the programmer thing just isn't comparable - knowing a little bit about the law isn't like knowing a little bit about web development. No one who is not a lawyer has the ability to get qualified to handle legal issues within the time frame they would need to for a legal issue at hand. Beyond that, with legal issues, you can't take back your mistakes - if you get armchair legal advice and it turns out to be bad, you've probably irreparably harmed your prospects in the negotiation/case. If you mess up web development, it's not a big deal.
The cost argument is a fair one, and I think that's worth considering. In this case, though, OP has indicated that this is a project that he feels has some amount of value, so it's worth spending $300-500 for a consultation with a lawyer. I'd try to look at it from an expected value perspective - even if paying $500 only has a small chance of improving the outcome of your negotiation/case, if the value of the thing you're negotiating over is $25000, it's worth spending. If the value of the thing is $600, then don't bother.
In terms of finding a lawyer, upcounsel.com, avvo.com or referrals from friends are good places to go.
He gave me terrific advice on a similar issue many years back, and I've gone to him a few times since. I've never retained him: our conversations were always about knowing how to interpret employment contracts, understanding options, and coming up with a negotiation strategy. After those consults, I could go it myself.
A good lawyer won't drag you into litigation. Good lawyers are rare, but the goal should always be to appear professional and to preserve relationships. If you have the rights to your code, you should be able to maintain them without burning relationships with your job. If you don't, you should hand the rights over without a fight (or negotiate for rights, but understanding you'll need to compromise something in return). In either case, you'd like to keep working there, you'd like good references later, and you'd like your employer to stay in your network.
You can't do that unless you understand your legal rights, and unless you have an idea of what tactics you should take.
A good lawyer will run you $300-$600 for a conversation (1-2 hours). A bad lawyer will escalate to a conflict, and run you tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Keep in mind law varies by jurisdiction. I don't know where OP is, so this recommendation may be moot. I've worked with many lawyers. I have no conflict-of-interest (my relationship with Bauer is limited to a small number of ~1-hour consults).
The difference is if you try to make a website yourself and you screw it up you're out a few hours and maybe a few tens of dollars at most. There's also very little you can do wrong that can't be fixed or undone later.
If you screw up your legal diy the consequences are much much worse, and often unfixable.
You don’t need javascript to build a website. You don’t need a doctor to solve every health problem. And you don’t need a lawyer to resolve every conflict between people.
Eg. Where would the internet be if only programmers built websites?
Given some responses to this I will happily clarify. If you are in the united states the state you live in will have a state bar website where you can find attorneys in your area that specialize in different types of law. A number of people here have talked about the idea of talking to an IP lawyer. I think in this case I would recommend talking to an employment attorney. Most attorneys will give you an initial consult for free and then tell you what it would cost to move forward.
Blindly going to a lawyer can also be a bad advice. From my experience it opens a huge can of worms: first the situation may switch to a full on conflict for years. Your lawyer is incentivized to make you angry and fight to death, open other fronts etc... Another aspect some people might not understand too especially in low litigation countries is that "legal" and "fair" are different concepts. Reserve this kind of misery for when the outcome is actually life defining for you.
Your lawyer is incentivized to do what you describe but if they are a good lawyer the won't do that. They will show you possible options of going forward and put you in a decision to decide.
The tricky part is probably finding such a good lawyer and coming up with the money to pay them.
Edit: to add to you second point: If "legal" and "fair" are so different, that's exactly why you can't rely on your intuition but need to consult an expert.
> Find a lawyer, ASAP, that specializes in employment and / or IP. This is a legal issue and you need to solve it with people that know the law. Talking, signing, admitting things, etc, only hurt you.
This. Anything you say. Anything at all. Can. And will be used against you in a court of law. Your job wants your code. Personally I would lawyer up and start applying for new jobs elsewhere and ensure they wont pull the same. Just never work on code from their hardware on their resources (internet, power, etc).
And when you sit down with the lawyer, make sure to bring your employment contract and IP agreement. They'll need those to give you any informed opinions.
Thank you for the comment!
I totally get what you and other threads are trying to say and I don't disagree with what you are saying.
I probably should have cleared this out in my original post (my bad) that I do not wish to pursue the legal route. I personally feel that in my case, it will just drain everyone's energy for not much gain at the end. Also, personal relationships matter to me as well.
I'm trying to find ways to get compensated for the time and effort I've put into it.
If not financially, then in some other forms. But I don't have any ideas.
You don't go to the lawyer to sue your employer. You go there to understand your legal position. This gives you leverage in negotiations.
The way you use that leverage is then explain why you feel something is not fair. In a professional context, you can explain your position in legal terms when you take a compassionate, kind stance, smile and analytically explain the situation from both sides.
It's no more different than handling a code review.
Now, two things can happen: Either your employer is amazed that you both created a new product AND can navigate business negotiations. This is good for your career (unless your employer is an idiot).
Note that creating a new product that people love increases your market worth tremendously (unless you are already at a fairly well compensated level).
Traditionally the simplest way to compensate employees has been to give them a raise. Hint - you could ask this :)
The funny thing a higher pay grade does is that suddenly management will respect you more (we pay him x dollars so he must be awesome).
Or, the second case: you find out your employers 'mr. Niceguy' culture is actually a charade to fool people working at below market rates. At which point the fate of your sideproject totally depends on the legal feedback you received. And it would be better for you to find a better employer.
There are really good books on negotiation and influence. I suggest you read them when you have the time. Examples: Cialdini, 'Influence'. Voss, 'Never split the difference'.
I wholeheartedly agree with your comment. The core is that OP created something of value, in his own time. So there should be a value exchange of some sort.
Which, depending on case law in a particular jurisdiction, may or may not actually be enforceable. This is exactly why you would want to talk to a lawyer: they can tell you if you have a leg to stand on.
The employer might be under the impression that all the terms in the employment contract they pulled off FreeLegalTemplates.net are enforceable when they aren't. Going to a lawyer first gives you the ammunition to politely point out that you are in fact the one in the right here.
Unless he’s a salary employee. In that case, he’s technically always on the clock or could be argued to be so. If you want your time to yourself then stay an hourly employee.
IANAL, but it's definitely not that simple. I've worked in salaried positions and still retained ownership of my side projects. There was also one instance where I refused to sign a NCA that threatened my IP, so YMMV.
A salaried position is usually for X hours per month though. An employer that can make you work 24/7 each day of the month is not an employer, they're an owner.
In that case, have you considered getting a lawyer just for the advice and not telling anyone about it? A lawyer you hire won't go around making threats without your permission, and they can at a minimum tell you if your plan has a massive flaw you've overlooked.
The best way to not "go the legal route" is to find out what is legally open to you and what is not, and then negotiate from confidence rather than ignorance. Failing to do legal homework up front is actually an easy way to accidentally end up in court.
You are not understanding. You do not only talk to lawyers to sue people. Lawyers are the only people here who know the law and are on your side. You should not be asking HN what your options are: you should be asking your lawyer what your options are. And your lawyer, not the company's lawyer.
If you really want a to have a part of the product that you created you need to know your options/rights.
If you don't want to spend money on lawyers, at least read all relevant laws (which is important even if you have lawyer around you).
It's also better if your company doesn't know about your preparation, as it can be used as defence weapon in the negotiations only if you would get a worse position than what you have rights for anyways. Preparing in secret also helps you get more evidence for your case.
It's worth noting that your employer will probably have already spoken to a lawyer about this, or will be prepared to if you don't comply with their request.
A 30 minute session with a lawyer will give you much more insight in to how to deal with this situation more than what you can learn from an internet forum.
You will have to reset all of your expectations, regardless of their combinations. OP has made some strategical errors already and it now depends on the exact writing of his employment contract and the jurisdiction they are in what options are still on the table.
Unless your employer is foolish (unlikely) they have definitely talked to a lawyer about this already.
You should do so as well, to be on the same footing. This lets you negotiate with confidence, you'll understand your BATNA and the terms of your contract with the business.
We can't even begin to think about the answers to this question with knowing what state the employer and/or poster are in. Nor can we begin to think about it without the specifics of the application and the field that the employer develops in. The ultimate conclusion of this will ultimately boil down to minutiae. Minutiae that we are neither privy to nor have the knowledge or experience to reasonably discuss.
But this is the obvious answer. OP didn't need you to tell him to get a lawyer. If he had that kind of money he'd be talking to a lawyer not us. I mean I know you meant well and I know I probably sound like a negative jerk but yeah of course it's a legal issue and he should talk to a lawyer. It's like if someone has a stomach ache and they asked online what it might be and someone tells them they should see a doctor. It's obvious and doesn't need to be said.
I think what OP needs are good resources so that he can educate himself as much as possible. Yeah he also needs a lawyer, if this is that important to him, but being informed will be a force multiplier here.
in my experience people are generally shity when you ask for legal advice online but you could try that. For example stack exchange has one but you'll probably get condemned on there instead of getting helpful advice.
An out-of-the-box idea might be to find a paralegal on FIVERR and ask them to dig up resources to read up on.
Again I apologize for being such a jerk about your suggestion. I'm a terrible person.
I disagree. Learning the ins and outs of the law and of IP negotiations - a very specialized and cut-throat field - in a few days or maybe weeks is out of the question.
If he can't talk to a lawyer, he's going to lose. Period. Maybe very badly. After having already screwed up, now is not the time to half-ass it.
You're not a terrible person but you've given absolutely terrible advice.
At what point did I tell OP to become an expert on IP law? Nowhere. My advice to OP was to educate himself so that no matter what he did he could be more effective.
> You're not a terrible person but you've given absolutely terrible advice
You didn't read my advice correctly and I place zero value in your opinion about me being a good person or not especially considering you thought you had enough information to even bring up the topic based on one short internet comment.
Now you're nitpicking. Sure, he can educate himself and should. But in the amount of time he has (can't be much) he can learn basically nothing. It's too late for that path to make any sense.
As for the other thing, looks like you're intentionally picking a fight. Therefore, out of deference to your better logic, I withdraw my comment that you are not a bad person.
> If he had that kind of money he'd be talking to a lawyer not us.
He, and you, may not know that you do not always need money up front to engage the services of a lawyer. Many lawyers extend credit to their clients or allow clients to condition their fee on a successful outcome (a contingent fee). Depending on the desired outcome in this case, such an arrangement may be easy. For example, if OP wants to arrange a sale of the IP to his employer, then the lawyer’s fee could be paid from the proceeds. Some lawyers also take credit cards.
Also, an initial consultation to decide if OP wants to hire a lawyer shouldn’t cost anything. OP won’t get any free advice, but he should get an idea of how a lawyer could help in his situation.
Not only are you wrong, but you're being dramatic and deflecting criticism. People being "shitty" when you ask for legal advice online or not is a complete red herring because it is an inappropriate and dangerous substitution. Fiverr? Are you kidding? You can get a fairly cheap half hour consultation of some kind with many a good lawyer for a few hundred dollars AT MOST and it will not be a waste of time. There's only one right answer here.
Your answer is dangerous and your attitude is flippant. You need to seriously rethink both, or you're going to get yourself or someone else in hot water someday.
I've had a lot of conversations about this lately, but my tolerance for this kind of ignorance ends where the possible damage begins. You are directly leading someone down a dangerous course and playing with fire. Feel free to make that choice for yourself if you really want to, but don't expect to give this poor advice to others in a public forum without a reality check.
> An out-of-the-box idea might be to find a paralegal on FIVERR and ask them to dig up resources to read up on.
Ideas are a picodollar a dozen. Why don't you try this one and tell us how it works out? Or, at a minimum, find out if you could even theoretically hire a paralegal on Fiverr?
Depending on your country and state, as well as your employment agreement, there are a lot of impactful variables. Intuition and personal relationships are not going to help you solve this issue, especially, absent knowing the law and your position.