Would my employer own a game I made in my own time?

[Reezer]

A few friends and I have an idea for a simple iPhone game and are planning to develop it fairly soon.

There is a clause in our contracts (we all work for the same company) that states all ideas/copyrightable works/technical know how we come up with whilst working for the company is owned by the company. It also states that we will do anything required, at the companies cost, to transfer ownership of all works, related or otherwise, to the company.

I understand this is fully necessary so that we can't sue the company for something we do for them after they make millions selling it but don't think it seems fair/enforceable for ideas unrelated to the companies business. For example, by the word of the contract, if I composed a song during my own time and sold it, my tech company could claim ownership of it.

In my real example, the difference isn't as great as for music, but we are developing a game for iPhone and my company are only interested in IT services for massive organizations and governments. Sure, software is software, but they would never release a game...

So, my question is this, is a catch all clause that couldn't actually be enforced in my scenario or is it binding to the letter?

If it's cut and dry and the employer would always win if they decided to enforce it we will likely seek written permission for an exemption for the field of games before releasing. If they decline and we still want to do it, one or even all of us, would have to consider taking a career break or resigning before developing/releasing.

I found lots of information on this for various states in the US but didn't find anything relevant to the UK.

Any advice/suggestions/links to relevant material would be much appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Reezer]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

It sounds like the most sensible thing to do is to try and get the company to sign off on it before going ahead.

Next challenge I suppose is working out who at the company would actually have the "power" to sign away the companies rights like that... I suspect the central legal department would just deny the request to keep the minions on the same legal terms for an easy life - it's not like they gain anything other than a trivial boost of morale/good will by approving it!

I know there are lots of people working with me who are moonlighting or working on side-projects for themselves just to keep the programming "bug" alive. We're all programmers by choice but the process and support heavy company rules mean we don't actually get to cut much code. I wonder how many of them have even considered that the company could take their creations away if they fancied.

Thinking about it now, I wonder if the local management realize that clause is there - there was a chap who figured out the "specialized interface hardware" one of our clients was buying for £1800 a pop was just a standard PCI COM card with a strange backing plate + port on it and set up his own company selling them for £200. The company also make hardware so it wouldn't have been much of a stretch for them to enforce their rights and take the idea off him.