[consulting] copyright policies

[Kevin Amerson]

On Jan 25, 2008 11:40 AM, Katherine Lawrence <katherine at pingv.com> wrote:

>  For something to be patentable it needs to be not previously known,
> unique, unobvious, and useful. It needs to pass the patent examiner who will
> look to prior art to challenge the inventor's claim of those parameters.
> Also, unless the individual assigns the rights to someone else, say as a
> condition of employment, the patent belongs to the inventor, even if the
> firm the inventor is working for is paying the inventor a salary. But these
> are moot points with software that is open source.
>

Your example was an assembly line built using open source components, I
assume the assembly is previously not known, that it is unique and not
obvious and of course useful.  The fact that it was built with previously
known components doesn't change anything.  The rest of your statement
depends on terms of employment of course and what contracts have been
signed.

For instance, before I take a contract as a consultant here in the US or
before I enter into employment I disclose a list of my patents to my
employer, this is so that my employer will not have a case to take those
inventions from me because I had them prior to employment.  any inventions
made on the clock with that employer belong to the employer.

Kevin
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