Philip Stortz wrote:
> as for voluntary agreements, this is the rub.  for many technical people
> entering into such an agreement in return for employment is not optional
> as it has become common practice amongst all major companies (at least
> here in the u.s.), thus if a technical person wishes to be employed in a
> technical field they do not have any real power to negotiate this point
> of their employment.

This is nonsense.  I've negotiated intellectual property agreements as part
of an employment contract several times.  A lot of the standard contracts do
say that the company owns everything, but I've found it very easy to push
back on this.  For example, I'm doing work for a local company currently and
specifically have permission to persue outside interests as long as I don't
do it on their time, at their place or using their equipment, and it's not
related to their business (which happens to be indoor location).  Their
standard employee agreement doesn't allow for this, but it really wasn't
very hard to get this changed.  This is probably because they recognize it's
fair.  This experience was typical of other related situations I've seen or
been part of.  This is really no different than negotiating salary or any
other working condition.

My first day at Apollo computer in 1986 was filling out forms and the like
in the morning.  When it got to the employee agreement I refused to sign it
because of obnoxious and unreasonable clauses related to intellectual
property.  A bunch of lawyers started scurrying around and I given a bunch
of BS by some faceless manager, but two hours later a reasonable empoloyee
agreement was presented that I did sign.


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