Who owns projects created on while "on clock"?

did you develop the system for the company? is the company using your application? it’s their application if you essentially developed it for them. why would you think you can walk away with the application anyways? former it manager here…

Okay let me rephrase my last sentence.

I don’t want to walk away with it.

I’m more than happy to let them continue to use it.

But it’s currently my pride and joy and I would like to continue development after I’m gone from the company.

They didn’t really ask me to make this application for them but some others and this kin of just happened.

If there was no signed agreement, then you are perfectly within your rights, usually, to recreate the system on your own.

if they paid you to develop it for the company, there is not much you can do to try and walk away with the whole system.

If you developed it on their dime and it’s related to your work duties, and you don’t have a contract specifying otherwise, it belongs to them. It’s called “work for hire.”

you’re obviously a young person (else you would know the answer to this question) and it’s understandable that you feel pride in your work. nonetheless, you don’t own the product you produce for your company anymore than a factory worker owns the product the worker produces for the factory.

@avalmez Yeah I’m pretty young. and based off of what you and everyone else has said. It’s not mine anymore :( Oh well I’ll just have to recreate it and make it better.

Thanks everyone!!

It is work for hire and belongs to the company that paid your time to create it.

The same goes for artists working for Disney or for publishing houses, also those who code for software companies.

Save your best ideas to develop at home and then copyright them.

This is completely up to the contract that does not exist unfortunately. Are you sure there are no policies at your work regarding such things? Ask HR again, if HR exists.

Generally speaking, and in lieu of any contract, if the asset is created on company assets or time, it belongs to the company, even if it does not relate to the company, even if it existed only via a fluke.

Legally speaking, whoever has the stronger lawyers and judge or jury’s ear will win this.

I see you have chosen to not make this nasty with lawyers and such. I think this is really the best option. But you can definitely take something from this situation, take the knowledge that in your next job, you should have this aspect clarified and a part of the contract if possible and desired.

Derivative works are a pretty iffy legal subject when it comes to software.
Does it use the same database structure, same codebase, same design…
Special features that are unique to the marketplace are a different issue, but if it is simply allocating resources, who is to say?

I agree that it would require a legal battle to determine if a newly created time management system is derivative or not.

i can feel your pain! and fireside brings up an important point – intellectual property. that means that your application goes beyond the source code you’ve written and the physical files and database it maintains.

your company owns the ideas that led to the realization of your time management system. that includes the designs (architectural, logical and physical DB, detailed design, code base, and on and on it goes) of your application.

So, even if you were to rewrite your application in a different language using a different file system and DBMS, if the completely rewritten application implements the same designs, guess what – you’ve still “stolen” the IP of your company’s time management system, that is the designs belong to the company and you can’t, essentially, recreate the same wheel!

your wheel needs to be different. and if you think about it, there are probably things you would have done differently given what you learned about the problem domain. perhaps you know certain aspects of your design that don’t perform well – architectural features that don’t perform well, redundancies, missing features/functions..those sorts of things. aspects that aren’t scalable. maybe your new wheel should be n-tiered.

young developers tend to be purists – i know i was. that usually leaves room for implementing say a pentagonal application that functions in a specific setting better than the original wheel.

and dog’s advice is right on. if you ever have an idea that you believe is an original and winning marketable idea, keep it to yourself – don’t even ask for an opinion about the idea at your job. although there are cases where a former employee won against his employer because he implemented an idea his employer completely and totally rejected, you’re taking you chances if you think you have a marketable idea.

best of luck to you in your career – and live and learn!

Yeah, I guess I should have been more clear. You can certainly still take the lessons you learned from building the time management system, but don’t just rebuild the same code and implement it the same way.

These days, anything code you write for the company is property of the company