Here's an extract from my (employee) contract
All rights to any material and results, and all intellectual property rights related thereto, made, written, designed or produced by Nathan Cooper during the term of his/her employment shall be vested in the Company. For the avoidance of doubt, the Company shall have a right to freely develop and alter such material, results and intellectual property rights and to license and assign them to a third party.
Is this over-reaching? Ie, is it all-encompassing, does it hypothetically lay claim to unrelated intellectual property produced on my own time?
More specifically. Is the "term of employment" similar to "course of employment", which I understand is limited in scope to work related duties (... I think) ?
If it is over-reaching. What would be better language? Is there something that protects non-work related IP (for me), and protects the company's IP from potential bad behavior from me. Has anyone any experience in negotiating their IP language?
Perhaps a change to "course of employment" would do the trick, or something more specific to scope the IP to work "created as part of, or in connection with his/her duties".
NB. I'm not concerned by this language at my current employer, but I'd like to have something prepared in future that makes everyone happy.