Randinah writes on kuro5hin about the case of Evan Brown, a veteran IT professional who approached his bosses one day in 1997 about jointly developing a potentially-valuable software idea he claims to have been thinking about since 1976 — long before he started this job. His employer, a Texas company called DSC Communications (since swallowed by Alcatel of France), realizing the immense market for this kind of software program, initially made him an offer of up to US$2m for the idea. He counter-offered with a request for US$5m, and they fired him and sued him, claiming that they owned the idea anyway.
Among the many forms he signed when first hired was an Intellectual Property agreement. If you work in academia or in a technology industry company, you probably signed one, too. The agreement probably mandates that any patentable or marketable product, process or research created while you are in the company’s employ belongs to the company.
His case has not yet come to trial, although there have been motions made and rejected many times over the past five years. He has been forced to defend himself in a couple of motions to require him to disclose the idea to his former employer. It became necessary for him to sell his house, his plane and virtually all his possessions, and then to declare bankruptcy, so even though he has been ruled responsible for payment of the more than US$300,000 for DSC’s attorney fees, there is no way he can comply.
In June of 2000, Brown was ordered to report to Alcatel’s offices every day to develop his idea and make it work on Alcatel’s computers. After spending a couple of months there, he had produced over 400 pages of code which Alcatel has subsequently been unable to make work. They claim that he is holding back; he claims that there is a bug which he can fix; the court claims that there should be no more work done on the program until the trial begins.
The unique part of this case is that Brown never wrote anything of his invention down until compelled to by the court. No notes, files, scribbles — nothing. The only thing he admits to doing at work is thinking.
The big question here is, who owns your ideas? Are your cubicle daydreams the property of your employer? What about dreams and creations which you produce during the part of your life when you are not at work? What about discussions you have with your spouse or your friends or your children where you help them to create an idea with marketable potential — does you employer have some claim to that? What about artworks, novels, screenplays which have nothing to do with your employer’s business?
And how, if you did not willingly comply with the court in actually setting the idea in a tangible form, could our laws compel you to disclose it? Torture? Solitary confinement? Drugs?