[Gllug] "Open source has its own problems" - article in Computing

[Jason Clifford]

On Thu, 4 Aug 2005, Rev Simon Rumble wrote:

> >If you use your inside knowledge of how your company produces a widget
> >to produce a better widget the company are unlikely to care on whose
> >time you wrote the code for the better widget: they would still regard
> >it as an infringment. Whether they could enforce it is, as you say, more
> >dificult to judge. But it's not as simple as "I did it in my own time so
> >therefore it belongs to me".
> 
> If you're working for a company producing widgets in a particular area
> and you work on a free software project that also produces widgets in
> that area, I would say you're not just infringing, you're being very
> unethical.

This is no longer a discussion of copyright but of patent law which is 
entirely different. 

This serves to highlight why none of us should accept the use of the term 
"intellectual property" as it is deceptive. Copyright is not the same as 
or even substantially similar to patent.

For copyright so long as the developer has implemented a clean room system 
(ie cannot reasonably be accused of remembering and copying code seen in 
his employment) and did so using his own time and own equipment the 
employer has no claim to it in this country.

For patents the employer would probably have a valid and enforcable claim 
of infringement in the situation described.

Of course if the widget is purely software then the patent is invalid and 
so would be the claim of the company ;)

Jason
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