General > General Technical Chat
Can I sell a product?
Kronkulus:
Hey everyone first post!
I've got a few projects pretty close to "done." I watched Dave's older videos on why not to get a patent, how to choose a price for your product and the difference between doing it yourself vs going with a distributor. I'd at least like to try this out on the side even if it flops completely.
What I'm trying to determine though, is if I'm crossing a legal boundary I don't want to be on the wrong side of. I already work as an engineer for a company, and I signed a confidentiality agreement when I came on to their team. The confidentiality agreement seems pretty all encompassing in terms of what is theirs. It mentions that anything I design that could be useful to the company, whether in my own time or during business hours, is property of the company.
How far do these usually reach? For example, this company uses bench power supplies in their lab (shocker!). They don't sell bench power supplies, but it could be argued that a power supply design would be "useful to the company."
I'll try and get some information from the company I work for itself, but I'm not sure if that would make them raise their eyebrows at continuing to employ me LOL. Thanks for anyone's insight!
sokoloff:
This would be more in the realm of an Intellectual Property ownership/assignment document than a confidentiality agreement.
You might use those terms to Google for your specific state's laws, which may supersede parts of any document your company has provided, even if you agreed to it.
Bud:
Just show your design to them and obtain a release in writing if they are not interested? Woz did that at HP with his computer design, the rest is history.
Kronkulus:
I found some decent information in section 20 of "Intellectual Property Law for Engineers and Scientists" by Howard Rockman. It seems to suggest that I should be able to show the company the product and get a written agreement saying its mine to do with what I please, if they agree that it's of no use to the company. Now to figure out what to show and who to show it to.
Someone:
.. crap company:
"we have no use/plan for this idea but are worried it might in the future be valuable, so we'll own it and do nothing with it for now... oh and you get nothing"
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version