My Crazy Altium Employment Contract Story!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ก.ย. 2024
- When I signed the employment contract for Altium, they wanted to own every project idea I had ever had!
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You just strike out the clause, send it back, tell them to remove it. Don't play their games. If they refuse to remove it, walk away. If they have no intention of doing anything they'll happily remove it. You almost give them more ammunition in court by providing a list rather than doing nothing and pleading ignorance (unless your list was iron tight). Especially in the current market, it's an employee's game at the moment in Australia.
Very recently I walked away from an offer for similar reasons.
In this case it basically came down to the idea that I wasn't able to work in this specific field anymore for years. Not even after a month or two trial period.
In the EU such clauses are not legal, because that would mean career suicide with big implications. So a company can put it in there, but it would immediately wiped away by court. (I had this checked by a lawyer)
Fact is that you already have to start a relationship on such way from the start is just a no-no.
Very unfortunate, because it's a great company and really ticked all the boxes.
@@p_mouse8676 I have heard (I am not a lawyer) even in Australia most of these clauses invalidate contracts due to common law.
@@p_mouse8676 AFAIK, non-compete agreements are also illegal in Straya, and from a few months ago in the USofA as well (tho it's still being verified by individual states). I'd never agree to an enforceable non-compete, that's, as you've rightly pointed it out, a career suicide in the making.
Last time I had anything to do with non-compete clauses (not personally but with a former colleague who had one), the company was required to pay his salary during the non-compete period or until he got a new job (whatever comes first) and that was on top of his severance package. And there was a clause saying that the former employer had to explicitly claim the non-compete clause within a certain amount of time after the employment ended for it to be valid. Those caveats were necessary to make the clause legal here.
@@zwerko it's a bit different when you go work for a direct competitor.
The practicality of it. Even if you already know for sure it's BS, do you already want to start that relationship knowing it could probably lead to a lot of headaches and trouble down the line?
No thanks.
"They would never try to use this clause."
Disney has entered the chat.
Dave does not get the "All your base belong to us" reference :)
Should have been "all your base are belong to us" right?
@@duprod5482 Yep, that is the original quote from the game.
I did get it, but I thought it was ""bases", not "base", hence me sayign that again.
They probably had a case or two , where someone invented a neat design while working in the company and then said he had that idea years ago.
Then the lawyers had to sue him and prove that it was not so.
It´s probably not about your IP, it´s more about a shift in the burden of proof.(With strange results if they want to pursue a different way ;-) )
That's what it sounded like to me as well.
I think one area where it gets hard is when an employee works on something related to their day job on their own time. The employee feels because they weren't being paid it's their idea but because the company is in that business it is their idea. Hence they go all in their favour. I like Dave's garage, had approval to sell zip folders software while working at Microsoft. Then Microsoft purchased it from him and included it in Windows. As Dave Jones says read the paperwork and make sure they know what else you're doing. I've always made my employer aware of other consulting jobs I've had. Removes any ambiguity.
@@vk3fbab As a contractor I sometimes run into a parallel issue with non-competes. Usually the service provider just wants some assurance that I won't poach their customers but they often word it so broadly that I would never again be able to do any kind of work for one of their customers outside of my contract with the service provider.
Stupid clause that won't hold for one second in court. At least not in Europe.
Stupid people that sign such a contract!
@@SurvivalSquirrel well people need a job to pay the bills sometimes.
@@SurvivalSquirrel No, smart people sign such a contract knowing that it's unenforceable. Incidentally, this is one reason why silicon valley is in California. Also see The Traitorous Eight
I have asked employers to strike out the no compete clause. They said no worries it's not enforceable anyway
Don't know where you are based but its a mixed bag in the US. Pretty much any big company here is gonna tell you to piss off if you ask them to strike anything at least in this economy. Even some startups will too. Had one less than a year ago define owning any publicly traded stock as competition with them. Asked them to strike it and they doubled down. An absurd hill to die on for something any judge could tell you in 2 seconds wouldnt hold up as "reasonable" in court anyways.
Did they also claim ownership of your first born son?
The question is, did he include it in the addendum?
Only if not listed together with the application.
"Yes sir, I listed them, but if you want to see the list, you need to sign this first" :)
I've seen that before, in small businesses they'll take a standard template and won't even give it a proper read.
This exact situation happened to me at my last job. Turns out nobody had read or questioned the contract in the 18 years they were using the same form!!
In the US, that is a standard part of most employment contracts these days. It's called an invention assignment agreement, and they're straight up evil. I wouldn't imagine a hardware corp would want employees to sign it, but Altium is a software corp, so if you do work on their software, they'll want what's "in your head" so to speak. It's part of the "work for hire" concept related to employment, and a way to stop employees from moonlighting and spilling IP into other non-corp projects. Horribly one-sided, but generally required no matter what software role you take these days.
No, this is saying that they own the macaroni drawing you did when you were 5 not just work you did while employed there.
Correct. This specifically said they owned your previous designs and ideas.
@@EEVblog2 A US company tried to get their Swedish employees to agree to a similar new contract with this kind of nonsense in it. Oh how we laughed!
You and me both doing things that no one at the company has ever done before
You just did a free brainstorming session for Altium!!
Was their number of patents up the following year...??
The thing to remember is that regardless of your employer's attitude at the time they hire you, management will change sooner or later, (eg; with a Private-Equity takeover, & then you're screwed & lose your intellectual property. As another commenter has said, the smart thing to do is to strike-out & initial any clauses you don't like (preferably with the aid of *your* IP / Employment lawyer) before signing it. If they weren't planning on screwing you over, they'll be fine with signing off on your amended contract.
While you're talking to your lawyer, also watch out for forced arbitration clauses that make it impossible for you to take your employer to court.
Yeah, I had an employment contract with similar terms. I just struck out that ridiculous crap and they were fine with it.
I just draw a line through anything I don't agree too, then initial it. Most don't even look, but when they do they usually agree it wasn't important to them anyway.
Sounds like it would've been easier to remove that clause than to write a list of all your ideas. They might not even notice you removed anything. That may be considered deceptive if you don't tell them, I'm not a lawyer.
You have to document that both parties are aware of changes or a court will usually rule in their favor. Also not a lawyer, but have witnessed it play out.
I was given a contracting contract by a company that had several clauses on how they could terminate the contract. But there was no clauses on how I could terminate the contract. Also there was a clause that if I didn’t give them 90 days notice of my death they owned my company and other assets. (My company owns a 10% share holding capital equipment company I know work full time for. (Plus all this patent stuff)
lol at the 90days death notice
I had that same thing given me in contracts years ago (1990’s).
I crossed-out those sections, returned the contract. Nobody ever said a thing, continued with the consulting contract, no problems. 😉
This clause is most likely void in court. How can they claim to 'own' a project that you did for another company? What I usually see in contracts is that everything belongs to the company while you are employed by them. Perhaps they wanted to protect themselves so that you can't claim you had this idea before being hired.
Not as crazy as it sounds. Company just wants you to list out your prior IP in case you do invent something while employed, you can't claim that you invented it before your employment. If when hired, you think there might arise a conflict down the line and the company does not have this type of clause, be defensive and submit a list of your existing work. I've done it and no one seem surprised. List was not 5 pages, but same idea.
I'd guess the purpose is so that you can't just claim that any idea you do have on the job is something you had before thus the company can't get any rights to it.
Google had a similar clause in ~2010. I think the intention is that if you use your prior IP at your new job, you can't go sue them for infringement.
They also wanted to cover their asses in terms of IP stolen from previous employers, etc. They asked if we still had computer accounts or keys to our previous employer. I did, because I was a grad student on an internship, and the university was my previous employer. I filled that out, and I think it got sent to the lawyers, but I never heard a word back about it.
It's been in the employment contracts since 2006, and still there today.
That's probably pretty common, and I'm guessing almost no one reads the details of those contracts. I remember I had to sign something similar when my startup was acquired back in 2007. I went back and forth with HR on it. I think in the end I did produce some list, but it was pretty short and nowhere near as detailed as yours. I figured they didn't have a legal right to claim any of my previous work, especially anything unrelated to their business.
My impression is that in RnD at least, some sort of IP ownership waiver is pretty normal operation. Last time I was supposed to sign one of those I had it changed to only explicitly cover the company core business, which I was comfortable with. If I have a fantastic business idea i would need a team anyway, and we're pretty good at what we're doing, so it would make sense to come to us anyway. Another idea in another field, though? No way jose. It's mine.
I hope you included your turbo encabulator design! 🤣🤣
I guess it's some lawyer trying to be smartass and have blanket clause to prevent you stealing THEIR ideas while you work for Altium.
I hope you included a few 'unspecified classified projects' for good measure. xD
I think I did add a paragraph to that affect.
The same thing happened to me in the 90's whilst working at a chip tuning company. Pages and pages of designs, 99% of the information not relevant to the industry I was in
Just make up your own contract, saying all of Altium's designs now belong to you, and include the quote "I have altered the deal. Pray I don't alter it further."
When they don't sign it, ask them why not?
That employment contract wasn't legal. Straight up.
That is just the same as Disney, trying to get out of the death of a lady as the husband clicked agree on a Disney+ trial to not be able to be sued now or in the future.
I had sam thing with a big at that time company (Royal Philips ) and that I should not ever do same job for another !! so I added an addendum that they should pay me for any use of myregistered findings and pay my salary as if I wasworking for them but unempolyed to conrtact restriction !! I was an RF engineer in the TV business with some good designs , th!! HR in eindhoven accepted and I stayed more than forty years happy good company, I ended at the HQ for internall audit and IT security EUrope before they closed after outsourcing all even R&D...
Did you consider asking to just strike that term instead of doing the list?
Im surprised you didn't just fight that clause and have it struck out
That cant be legal. They could not claim ownership of your previous employers intellectuals property. Weird.
Well its not illegal ofc. It could be tested in court but any right-minded judge would throw it out. So the gamble is what proportion of judges are right-minded ... :)
Don't think that is legal and could even hurt their case in a labor dispute as it demonstrates their unreasonable demands upon their employees.
Lawyers are scum of the earth. I've seen the same thing working for an investment bank that has absolutely no idea about electronics design. The worst thing is if you challenge this garbage you will be seen as too problematic to hire.
CSIRO have the same.
What are they, the BORG?
This is why they have non-compete clauses these days.
"anything you did in the past is ours" is not legal
I had the same "we own all your existing Ideas and patents now and in the future" agreement handed to me to sign when I worked for Wonderbra as a Moulding Technician in the late 70's. Did not sign it unless they changed it to "while in our employ".. They never changed it and still hired me.
Any perks to that job?
@@gmonkman Yeah.... Tripled my salary in 3 years😉
Bosch do exactly the same thing, no accreditation or recognition.
Ze Tschörmans
stay away from big companies is the main rule... even with huge experience, you will be way better if you get employed in a startup than in big company... in most cases they dont want your skills, they just want to own you while they devalue your talent and skills so they can pay you less.
Assuming Altium was before your EEVBlog and YT channel, would they be able to assume ownership of the website and channel if they weren’t listed in the addendum? I’d love to see them try some BS like that just to see your fans boycott them into bankruptcy.
I can’t stand greedy companies or corporations.
Altium was before YT yes.
In the real world, no, they'd never get ownership. But it could give them ammo if he started a Altium branded youtube channel or product or something.
I was the unlucky one ! Never got hired by electronic industry which still makes me sad to this day
Treez is that you?
So Altium is basically just trying to scam people
which company (Altium) is this a startup?
Altium is the most well known PCB design software company in the world.
I think that stuff is just added in there in case you are a troublemaker. If you try to take over a patent that is legit theirs, then they pull out the papers that says you signed all patents ovet to them, so that you can't profit off any of your patents while you are in court. Obviously they don't want to fight for millions of random patents that will never make them any money, but will fight dirty to protect the ones that are legit theirs.
Dunno about down under, but that contract wouldn't hold water in the UK - but of course you'd need resources to even challenge it here if some dickwad tried it on. Great story Dave!
What about designs that were works for hire you did for another company? Clown lawyers with no imagination thinking about how enforcement of that clause could go sideways!😂
Only slaves sign such a contract, or give them a project list!
Sounds Chinessy, I'll keep my notebook of pencil and paper from becoming CCP property.
First
hehe, atleast your first. hope you got a nice job?
@@CodeAsm *you're.
shhhh, stop flexing unless you wanna hire a mental.. for remote work... ;p