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Anonymous reports: <<I have just got my contract of employment (moving from
contract to permanent work at the same company) and noted that the
intellectual property section requires everything I do while employed by my
company to become the property of the company. I do a fair bit of writing
outside the company...>>
I'm in the same boat, and in both my jobs that had a similar clause in the
contract, I talked to my manager and the Personnel department, explained my
situation, and got their permission to add a handwritten clause specifying
that my personal writing unrelated to the company was excluded from this
agreement. I don't recall the specific wording, but since I publish a
helluva lot of stuff related to technical writing for STC and Raycomm, and
since my job involves technical writing, I spent some time and effort to
make it quite clear that this writing was also excluded. I suspect that
you'll find you can do much the same thing with your own contract, and that
even though the risk of legal entanglements is slight if you don't do so,
it's well worth your while to do so. Among other things, it establishes a
precedent for discussing things with The Powers rather than blindly
accepting everything they say, and that in itself is a worthwhile action.
--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
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