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."

1 of 758 comments (clear)

Re:I feel we're not getting the whole story by jkabbe · 2004-08-03 12:14 · Score: 0, Troll

Yeah, but what about those he had developed _prior_ to working at that company?

I can't read the article (/.ed) but to answer that question we need to find out whether the court finding was that:
1) He DID create his invention before working at the company BUT the company owned it because of the employment agreement
2) There was not sufficient evidence that he created his invention before working at the company so the company owned it because of the employment agreement

Obviously, the employment agreement is the common thread here. I like the rule that anything you do on your own time is yours.