whamill

I'm a software engineer in the UK and I have signed an employment contract with what I assume is standard IP section for the UK: everything I create while working for the company; every idea I have whether written down, exploited or not; every new IP I may invent during the period of my employment [inside and outside hours] - all rights belong to the company in so far as legally possible.

My understanding is that this is a 'normal' IP clause in UK employment contracts added to specify that on top of the statutory presumption that all copyright rights will vest in the company, all moral rights will also vest in the company as far as possible.

My concern here is that as the contract is not prescriptive about any restrictions to this land-grab, any work I do by myself on the side or for any other person or organisation will also be covered. For example, if I came up with and exploited an invention for some new application by myself, or released it as open-source, or was contracted to do by another company, all the IP rights will still vest in my main employer (even if the area of invention is totally unrelated).

What I want to know is what kind of IP clauses other UK software industry employees have, how they feel about how restrictive [or not] they are, and what my actual options are if I wanted to create something in my own free time.