intellectual property of existing ideas when joining new company

muggz

Hi all,

I have a question that might be slightly off the typical stuff but so much knowledge here I'd thought I would try to see if anyone could help.

I've just started work for a new company in the advertising space, i've just read my contract and there is the usual section about intellectual property rights and that whilst in employment with them anything I come up with belongs to them.

12 month ago I began a start-up (registered at company house) where we built our own piece of advertising technology, although we haven't gone live with it yet, it is in beta and works. Unfortunately i needed to get a job to support myself and joined a company in the same industry.

I just wanted to know how this would work moving forward, apart from the obvious conflict of interest scenarios, can the company I work for claim any part of my existing project?

What would you do in my situation? Although I mentioned it on my CV I think it might have been overlooked, do I sit down with the bosses and risk getting let go or not mention it and potentially risk getting sacked...or even sued(?)

Thanks for reading

woody01

I've just started work for a new company in the advertising space, i've just read my contract and there is the usual section about intellectual property rights and that whilst in employment with them anything I come up with belongs to them.

That's par for the course in any decent job.

getmore4less

It's not only the IP clause you need to worry about its the working for others clauses, these are fairly common, so you probably cannot work on this other project anymore without their approval.

I think it is normal in these situation to get pre approval to do the other work

How are you planning to protect this other Technology.

muggz

Yes it also have those in there too, it's a pretty typical contract actually.

We haven't looked into protecting it, while I wouldn't say it is unique technology, it does many things in this industry better than others and that was the key to wanted to start it in the first place.

I think I will approach them and lay the cards on the table, thanks for the advice