Having some trouble understanding some wording in a contract and how it affects the employee. The main passage is
You shall promptly disclose to the Company and to no-one else all copyright works or designs originated, conceived, written or made by you alone or with others (except only those works originated, conceived, written or made by you wholly unconnected with your employment) and shall until such time as such rights shall be fully absolutely vested in the Company hold them in trust for the Company.
What exactly does the term "wholly unconnected" really mean? Can a "connection" be something tenuous, for example...
If the job was a software engineering role, if the below were performed 100% out of work time, on personal hardware with no input from other employees at the company could they realistically be deemed as "connected" to the employment and owned by the employer?
I can understand the issue if company hardware was used for personal projects, but surely nobody can lay claim to things produced outside of work? It would be extremely tenuous in my opinion but could somebody argue something is connected because it required the same skills as the persons job, even if done on their own time?
- Writing a book about software development
- Releasing an open source piece of software not specifically aimed at the industry the company is in
- Release a commercial piece of software not specifically aimed at or competing with the industry the company is in