It depends on the state you are working in and the contract that you assign. In most states in the USA the default is that an employer is allowed to take claim of any and all intellectual property of employees if that is what is in their contract. A few states have made that illegal, California being a good example.
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.
They wouldn't have a law on the books if wasn't legal to own all the IP of your employee.
Geez, I went to bed, and woke up to all these replies. Thanks to everybody taking an interest.
I'm liking the look of the nagios program, I shall have to investigate it more when I get a chance. And I'll have to learn some more about the raspberry pi, I've researched them a little, but not massively.
With getting paid for it, I'm not looking for them to throw money at me. I'm more liking the idea of it on my portfolio, and maybe a bonus at the end of the year if it works well. They are, unrelated to this, putting me through management development courses, mentoring programs, giving recognition through awards and what not.
When a promotion possibilty comes around, the ability to say that I designed and implemented a temp recording system that saves x time, and x money, and x off the insurance company premium will get me well ahead of most other candiates. Well that's my hope anyway.
I hope it works out for you. It is my experience that few companies hold any loyalty to their employees (especially one with 56000 sites across the globe - you are just a number.) That's just business. Just remember that if they dump you, they keep your technology, and you get nothing.
I'm on pretty good terms with the higher ups in the company, they all know and like me. There are overseas parts, but for a big company, they are pretty people orientated, or at least the appear that way.
Plus if I start demanding money for it, we've got a fair few smart I.T. people who could probably grasp the tech pretty easily.
Columnmn:
I'm on pretty good terms with the higher ups in the company, they all know and like me. There are overseas parts, but for a big company, they are pretty people orientated, or at least the appear that way.
Plus if I start demanding money for it, we've got a fair few smart I.T. people who could probably grasp the tech pretty easily.
Don't let some of the negativity effect you. Companies often reward intuitive in their employees ideas and accomplishments, some more then others, some supervisors more then others, but it is never something to be considered a waste of time if it helps your advancement, sense of pride, and self assurance.
When I worked for Prime Computers I got a letter from them to the effect that they had no interest in any of my unrelated out of hours design work in general, and specifically a product I was working on that I eventually had on the market.
They were a huge company (RIP) but very good at the people level as well.