I am a lawyer, actually. That made this a particularly sickening situation. They cannibalized one of their own.
This was quite a while ago, water under the bridge. I knew then and know now that I had a good claim. But in deciding whether to litigate a claim, even a very good one, it's necessary to take the claimant's (in this case, my own) mental health and general well-being into account. Reluctantly, and after much deliberation and discussion with my wife and family, I chose to end it and move on with my life, lesson learned.
They were ready, willing, and able to grind me into hamburger.
I was already an employee of Corporation X when I received a written internal relocation offer for an overseas assignment and accepted it. The offer gradually came apart; they withdrew pieces of it at a time. "Well, we can't actually do that part," or "no, other employees aren't getting that so we can't give it to you," etc.
I had already acted to my own detriment by giving notice in my apartment, selling furniture so it wouldn't need to be stored, and so on. So after making a last-ditch effort to salvage the relationship, I ended up having to resign from the company about two weeks before I was slated to move. In an attempt to recover my losses, I kept the portion of the money they had advanced (quite a bit of it had already gone into expenses, e.g. deposit and first month's rent on an apartment in the new location, travel expenses for the apartment-finding trip, etc.). I really had no choice at that point. They withdrew so much that I would have lost a significant sum of money -- and continued to bleed red ink for the months and years to come -- just by acquiescing and moving at that point.
What did I get for my efforts to play by their rules while they jerked me around? A lawsuit served by a top-tier national law firm, and scorched-earth litigation threats from their lead counsel (e.g., "we'll have to dig into all of your personal finances, and we'll tell any future employer that you took money from us unless you pay everything back right now"). I had to settle with them and go deeply into debt (not just to the corporation but to my attorney) just to escape from that toxic, nasty situation.
Is there a lesson here? I don't know. Just be very careful what you do. For what it's worth, I agree with the countless others who predict that it can only go downhill from here.
The U.S. Federal Government can pre-empt, and has in fact pre-empted, much of the field with the patent and copyright laws.
But IP, as a general concept, is far broader than that. The individual states can and do pass laws governing trade secrets, trademarks and trade names, invention ownership (what we're talking about here), and many other areas that would fall within the catch-all of "intellectual property."
To give one example, California Labor Code sec. 2870 states:
"2870. (a) Any provision in an employment agreement which provides that an employee shall assign, or offer to assign, any of his or her rights in an invention to his or her employer shall not apply to an invention that the employee developed entirely on his or her own time without using the employer's equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secret information except for those inventions that either:
(1) Relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer's business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer; or
(2) Result from any work performed by the employee for the employer.
(b) To the extent a provision in an employment agreement purports to require an employee to assign an invention otherwise excluded from being required to be assigned under subdivision (a), the provision is against the public policy of this state and is unenforceable."
California has made the worst of such employment agreements unenforceable, but there's still a lot of room for an unscrupulous employer to maneuver. Subsection (1) is a real zinger.
Slashdot Mirror
I am a lawyer, actually. That made this a particularly sickening situation. They cannibalized one of their own.
This was quite a while ago, water under the bridge. I knew then and know now that I had a good claim. But in deciding whether to litigate a claim, even a very good one, it's necessary to take the claimant's (in this case, my own) mental health and general well-being into account. Reluctantly, and after much deliberation and discussion with my wife and family, I chose to end it and move on with my life, lesson learned.
They were ready, willing, and able to grind me into hamburger.
I was already an employee of Corporation X when I received a written internal relocation offer for an overseas assignment and accepted it. The offer gradually came apart; they withdrew pieces of it at a time. "Well, we can't actually do that part," or "no, other employees aren't getting that so we can't give it to you," etc.
I had already acted to my own detriment by giving notice in my apartment, selling furniture so it wouldn't need to be stored, and so on. So after making a last-ditch effort to salvage the relationship, I ended up having to resign from the company about two weeks before I was slated to move. In an attempt to recover my losses, I kept the portion of the money they had advanced (quite a bit of it had already gone into expenses, e.g. deposit and first month's rent on an apartment in the new location, travel expenses for the apartment-finding trip, etc.). I really had no choice at that point. They withdrew so much that I would have lost a significant sum of money -- and continued to bleed red ink for the months and years to come -- just by acquiescing and moving at that point.
What did I get for my efforts to play by their rules while they jerked me around? A lawsuit served by a top-tier national law firm, and scorched-earth litigation threats from their lead counsel (e.g., "we'll have to dig into all of your personal finances, and we'll tell any future employer that you took money from us unless you pay everything back right now"). I had to settle with them and go deeply into debt (not just to the corporation but to my attorney) just to escape from that toxic, nasty situation.
Is there a lesson here? I don't know. Just be very careful what you do. For what it's worth, I agree with the countless others who predict that it can only go downhill from here.
The U.S. Federal Government can pre-empt, and has in fact pre-empted, much of the field with the patent and copyright laws.
But IP, as a general concept, is far broader than that. The individual states can and do pass laws governing trade secrets, trademarks and trade names, invention ownership (what we're talking about here), and many other areas that would fall within the catch-all of "intellectual property."
To give one example, California Labor Code sec. 2870 states:
"2870. (a) Any provision in an employment agreement which provides that an employee shall assign, or offer to assign, any of his or her rights in an invention to his or her employer shall not apply to an invention that the employee developed entirely on his or her own time without using the employer's equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secret information except for those inventions that either:
(1) Relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer's business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer; or
(2) Result from any work performed by the employee for the employer.
(b) To the extent a provision in an employment agreement purports to require an employee to assign an invention otherwise excluded from being required to be assigned under subdivision (a), the provision is against the public policy of this state and is unenforceable."
California has made the worst of such employment agreements unenforceable, but there's still a lot of room for an unscrupulous employer to maneuver. Subsection (1) is a real zinger.
IAAL, but this is not legal advice. ;)