Pretty sure I will be asking a lawyer, but I want to learn more words and concepts first.

A possible new job wants to own any intellectual property I create and wants me to declare anything I want to keep as my own. This seems normal in my industry as they will be paying me to do some thinking.

Issue is that I have a number of ideas I have been developing. I am going to float some of them as products in my own time, though this may be years from now. Most of these are outside the current market for the company as far as I know.

How is this typically handled? I presume I don’t need to have copyrights or trademarks prior and can just list tentative titles.

I am also a little unclear on the spread between “intellectual property” and “an idea I am playing with”.

Thoughts? Concepts to investigate?

Edit: I did Internet search this, but I have not found working keywords.

  • hauiA
    2·
    4 months ago

    Holy christmas! One of the rate occasions I actually have to save a comment. Thank you very much for your suggestions.

    Some of this is familiar to me as I‘m self employed for a long time but a ton is new or more differentiated than I knew. Cant thank you enough.

    Especially the mental aspects are very familiar. Its a lonely business and the idea of screwing other businesses over is still baffling to me (as in getting screwed over by them just so they can make a buck for their employer who wont even thank them for it).

    From my days forming a company I remember how distressing it was to start out. I‘m totally someone who overdoes the preparation and I think thats what saved me back then. One thing I did trip over multiple times actually is betrayal. Friends, peers, business partners who scheem behind your back. I always thought this only happens in movies but the real world is actually worse.

    If you like, I‘d love to stay in contact. I‘m a sysadmin first and coding is only a hobby for me so if I get jobs in coding I‘d probably ask someone to do it. Besides, I like to meet folks with similar trajectory.

    Feel free to hit me up in dms or on matrix @haui:matrix.giftedmc.com