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Business Domain Knowledge
Posted by Anonymous . updated on 2/26/2009
I am a programmer who was contracted for developing a software system for a firm. I was then offered a fulltime position and worked for a year. I meanwhile acquired a lot of domain knowledge during this tenure and eventually decided to start a consultancy in the same field for other firms. I have redesigned the software and wish to offer it to other firms. Is there any violation here given that there was no explicit assignment and that the code was redesigned in a different technology.
thanks
sl
Answers (1)
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Isaac
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Maybe.
I suspect that on balance you can do what you wish to do without creating problems. I'll layout some things for you to consider.
If you were truly a contractor, the lack of a written agreement to assigning or creating a work for hire means that you own the copyright to the work you wrote. However sometimes there can be a legitimate issue as to whether someone who is an apparent contractor is really an employee. Just having your client/boss use a particular tax form is not enough to decide the issue.
Because it seems likely that you are a contractor, all I'll say about the employee situation is that it would put you in a much dicier position.
Some things that you consider "domain knowledge" might be things your ex boss/client considers to be a trade secret. I cannot really opine on the merits of this because I have no idea what knowledge is involved.
Even if there is no explicit assignment agreement your employment contract may generically address intellectual property issues. Besides the copyright issues I've alluded to their might potentially be patent related issues as well. Again I'll beg off exploring these in detail.
Of course there is always the chance that somebody will file a law suit against you even if they will ultimately lose. Not much you can do about that.
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