"... (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 ..."
If you work for a large company in the valley, how does it affect you?I'm curious if anyone has first hand experience with it.
Large employers will generally own whatever you do in your spare time. They will not mention this, and generally not care, but if you make a ton of money or do something really popular, they will start a fight.
Note:
"The employee bears the burden of establishing his invention comes within Labor Code section 2870. (Lab. Code, § 2872.)
"
See also cubic corp v. marty, which disassembles most typical arguments:
"Marty argues under the Labor Code provision "the employer is not entitled to the invention unless it 'resulted from' work performed by the employee, even if the invention, in general, relates to the 'business of the employer'....""
Marty has misconstrued the Labor Code provision.
<court proceeds to trash Marty's arguments>
etc
What connection does Cubic v Marty have to this? From Justicia:
> In mid-May 1977, Marty came up with an idea for an electronic warfare simulator (EWS), a device for training pilots in electronic warfare. He developed a block diagram in May 1977 and in June 1977 a manuscript describing his invention. He showed both the diagram and manuscript to Minton Kronkhite of Cubic, representing it might be a new product which Cubic could add to its product for training pilots, the ACMR (air combat maneuvering range). fn. 1 Cubic had had plans to add electronic warfare training to its ACMR but had not yet developed it at the time of Marty's invention. Kronkhite thought Marty's invention was a good idea and passed along the manuscript to Hubert Kohnen, another Cubic employee involved with the ACMR.
The guy gets a significant raise and Cubic works with the Navy on a program to study the idea, with the idea that Marty would be program manager.
The guy goes on to get a patent on the idea on his own without telling anyone. Approaches Cubic offering to sell the rights. Cubic demands the patent and fires him and she's for ownership. He tries to defend himself by saying that his job responsibility is not to invent:
> Further, Marty presented his invention to Cubic as a new product for Cubic, something which could be added to their ACMR. Marty was made program manager on the government contract to study (and refine the design of) his invention. While Marty may not have been a "design" engineer at Cubic, the scope of his employment did not preclude design work and in fact, Marty perceived it as encompassing design work since he presented his invention to Cubic as a design for Cubic without expressing any reservations of rights or indications that the invention was not a part of his Cubic employment
Sounds like the guy did some sketchy shit and was called on it. This is nothing like the scenarios we are talking about where an employee invents something on their own time with no connection to their company or their work. The court tore up his argument because the basis for the argument was that he was a non-inventing employee and somehow the agreement he signed didn't apply.
"What connection does Cubic v Marty have to this?"
It's the leading case and, as i said, quoted to this day in pretty much every other case.
Please ignore the facts of this case, what matters here is the courts view on what it means to be related to the business, who bears the burden of proof, etc.
"This is nothing like the scenarios we are talking about where an employee invents something on their own time with no connection to their company or their work. "
Define "no connection". In the hundreds of times i've had employees claim this, i can count on one hand the nubmer of times they were right factually (IE they often don't know enough about a large company to know everything that is going on, etc), and can think of only one case i think a court might agree with them.
Again, feel free to find a case that supports the general view that stuff you do on your own time is yours, and employers are going to have to fight to get it.
Because Cubic says the opposite - the burden is on you to prove it is something that isn't owned by your employer.
The guy showed his thing to his employer and they started pursuing it. How could it not be clearer the employer owned it?
I'm trying to understand how you can claim this shows Cubic shows anything other than if you give your ideas to your employer they become the employer's. That's pretty normal. Every day as an employee I have ideas I put into the products I create. Those ideas I get paid a salary for. I might have had those ideas while showering. They still go into my work and become the employer's.
Outside projects can have conflicts but Cubic is not related to that case.
As for companies owning everything, first off you might want to look up "duty of loyalty". Just because you thought of a solution at lunch (off hours) doesn't mean that therefore it doesn't belong to your employer. At the same time, in California at least, the has to be related to their work. Of course courts decide what's related and what's not and there's a broad spectrum. Selling coffee at night while building websites at a job seems pretty black and white. Making a mobile game at home while working on a console game at work is clearly in some kind of gray area. Back to "duty of loyalty" you have a duty not to compete with your employer. Putting out another game is arguably competing.
The right thing to do as pointed out by others is it to get a signed letter from your employer. Google offers these. So does Microsoft. I'm sure other companies do as well. If your's doesn't consider that a reason to look for a better employer.
I'm not saying that I have a case showing that "what you do on your own time is yours". That won't be the case, especially if you've signed an agreement to the contrary as a salaried employee.
I am simply pointing out that Cubic v Marty does not in any way disprove that idea that "what you do on your own time is you own" either, because that's not what happened in that case. Instead, the employee had an idea directly relevant to their employer's business, showed it to them, got a raise, pursued it as an actual work project, and then after all that went off to patent it privately. That is not really a situation that has to do with someone inventing something on their own in their private time having nothing to do with work, where the question is whether the employer should own it.
The decision in Cubic v Marty should not be surprising or remarkable from what I have read. As an employee, you obviously cannot take home technology ideas that you were pursuing at work, as an official work project, and expect to patent them and get away with it. If you think there is something specifically interesting and relevant about it, then please point that out since I'm not sure what I'm missing. I am not saying that I have a more relevant case, just that I don't follow the relevance of that one.
If you are a salaried employee, and you use company resources on the project, or review it with other employees, or the project is in your employer's field of business, or if you pursue the project as an official work project, and it's in the line of work you do for your employer, and if you have signed an agreement agreeing to do so, and these are all signs that the employer owns the result. The case where none of those things are true is the case that I think will be interesting.
I just read a summary of that case, and it doesn't even seem to me (who would generally be biased toward the inventor) that Marty had a case. He himself described his invention as potentially useful in a Cubic product.
I guess the cases that wind up in litigation tend to be the ones that aren't clear-cut, and I can believe the employer usually wins those. That doesn't mean that section 2870 makes no difference. If you can show me a case where the requirements were pretty clearly met, and the court still ruled against the inventor, that will be more convincing.
You missed the point, which was, the court basically put all the burden and problems of proving things around 2870 on Marty. They also took a very broad view of what it means to be related to the business.
You will have the same trouble. Cubic is quoted to this day for all the propositions i pointed out.
As for "show me a case", i'll ask the opposite: Find me a case that supports any view of this provision that people like to have (IE that most stuff they do in their spare time is going to be owned by them).
(to help: I'm not aware of any such cases, and i skimmed the headnotes for all 109 cases that cite Cubic)
> the court basically put all the burden and problems of proving things around 2870 on Marty
Well, yes. As you quoted, the statue itself directs the court to do that.
> They also took a very broad view of what it means to be related to the business.
Okay, I've now read the whole opinion and nothing in it surprises me.
If your point is that people tend to read secs. 2870-2 less carefully than they should, I am in no position to dispute that. I certainly agree that someone hoping to avail themselves of sec. 2870 would be well advised to be extremely careful -- even as to their choice of employer.
But I think there must be employers that don't make a habit of suing former employees when it appears that there's a reasonable chance that the 2870 requirements have been more-or-less met. Lots of Google engineers leave to start startups, I have heard, and I'm sure in plenty of those cases, they had their idea while they were still Google employees. If Google started litigating such cases regularly, they would destroy their reputation as a great place to work, I would think. (I have never worked for Google, so this is just my guess.)
There are probably cases where the company does not sue though. I do remember a case where a long time employee of sears designed and patented a novel and useful ratchet wrench. Hazy memory but he tried to sell it to sears. Sears instead claimed they owned it, and the court said nope.
