Does Your Employer Own Your Thoughts?

Posted by timothy on Tuesday August 3, 2004 @11:12AM from the don't-answer-that-out-loud dept.

MJ writes "Evan Brown has finally lost his 7 year court battle over ownership of thoughts in his brain. Judge Henderson of the 219th District Court in Collin County, Texas granted DSC Communications Corporation, Inc (now Alcatel, USA) a Final Judgement granting DSC ownership of Mr. Brown's idea of a reverse compiler that Mr. Brown claims to have begun formulating twelve years before his employment at DSC and during his off-time while at DSC. Mr. Brown has received media coverage in print, televion and on the Internet: The John Marshall Journal of Computer & Information Law, Wired, Computerworld. This rings similar to previous Slashdot articles on employer/employee IP rights."

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Re:He shouldn't have signed the contract. by jkabbe · 2004-08-03 12:16 · Score: 0, Flamebait

Is this going to hinge on the definition of "developed"? Does develop mean "created from scratch" or simply "improved upon"? While I generally think of the former while working on code, the latter seems to be better supported in the dictionary.
Re:Sadly, yes... by maximilln · 2004-08-03 12:54 · Score: 0, Flamebait

I entirely agree. So don't sign the contract!!

However high and mighty you might be due to the fact that you're legally correct...

You're still a fucking dumbass.

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