Patents and intellectual property

Posted by MrDatabase on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by MrDatabase
Published on 2010-06-09T02:27:26Z Indexed on 2010/06/09 2:32 UTC
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A colleague of mine made an assertion that "your employer owns all patents that you file while an employee". Is this accurate?

For example:
Suppose I'm an employee of company xyz where I make widgets of type "w". In my spare time I make widgets of type "t" as a hobby. I do not use any resources from company xyz at all for my hobby. Also the widget types are completely different. For example w could be lawn mower wheels and t could be sliding door frames (so I'm not using any skills learned from my employment at company xyz when making widgets of type t). If I were to file and receive a patent for widgets of type t would company xyz have any rights/ownership to this at all?

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