Ask HN: How will my employer know if I use their resource to build my project

3 points by responde 8 years ago | 1 comment

As a software engineer, I'm aware that some companies have IP laws that mean "we own whatever you build if you use our resources to build it"(edited). I have also known people who build out an MVP while working at another company and after some time get sued for IP rights because they used company resource like the Internet, hardware etc.

My question is how will the company know if I actually used their resource to build my MVP?

Say I have a private Git repository and I work on my project secretly and push to this repository and I never use company proprietary technology. If no one ever sees/notice me working on this, how will they ever know I used company resource.

I'm really curious about how they find out because of course, they don't have access to private Git repositories and unless anyone is actively tracking your hardware and scanning for side projects I doubt if they will ever notice.

How will they ever know?

FroshKiller 8 years ago |

I'm not a lawyer, and this is the sort of thing that could vary among jurisdictions, but whether they'll know is probably irrelevant. What will matter is whether they can prove it to the satisfaction of the court if they take action. Your employer doesn't need to know you did something--they just need to present it as likely that you did to a greater degree than you, with fewer resources, can prove you did not. This is the kind of thing that would generally be a civil matter, not criminal, and so the standards of criminal prosecution wouldn't apply (e.g. no presumption of innocence).

Never mind the questions of ethics and professionalism. From a legal perspective, it just doesn't seem worth the risk. The deck is stacked against you, and it doesn't matter what you think of the rules of the game.