in 1984 I went to work at General Dynamics in California (a Delaware corporation headquartered at that time in St. Louis, MO) a similar provision was in my employment contract and my soon to be boss made a point to highlight the provision.
On the other hand the company routinely paid fairly hefty rewards for "sugestions" that the company coud use to make or save money. I never heard of anybody in my plant that got in trouble for inventing in their spare time and trying to sell their invention. But I knew several folks that got $10-30K for their sugestions.
When GD sent me to Alabama I had to sign a new contract and the provision was there. Other companies I worked for in Alabama and Tennessee had similar provisions in their contracts. Most private universities have such provisions. I don't know what the end result (other than the guy moved to New York) but a guy at a southern university worked on some GPL code and released it and the university claimed that the code could not be released until the university reviewed it and made a decision that they couldn't make any money on it (potentially a 2-4 year process), then the guy could release it.
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in 1984 I went to work at General Dynamics in California (a Delaware corporation headquartered at that time in St. Louis, MO) a similar provision was in my employment contract and my soon to be boss made a point to highlight the provision.
On the other hand the company routinely paid fairly hefty rewards for "sugestions" that the company coud use to make or save money. I never heard of anybody in my plant that got in trouble for inventing in their spare time and trying to sell their invention. But I knew several folks that got $10-30K for their sugestions.
When GD sent me to Alabama I had to sign a new contract and the provision was there. Other companies I worked for in Alabama and Tennessee had similar provisions in their contracts. Most private universities have such provisions. I don't know what the end result (other than the guy moved to New York) but a guy at a southern university worked on some GPL code and released it and the university claimed that the code could not be released until the university reviewed it and made a decision that they couldn't make any money on it (potentially a 2-4 year process), then the guy could release it.