Anonymous writes "A Texas appeals court has decided that
a computer programmer's former employer owns the thoughts inside his head. The court decided that an idea for a computer program that did not yet work, and that the programmer, Evan Brown, had been working on since college, was covered by an invention disclosure agreement that the company made Brown sign after he had started working for the company.
The court's opinion ignored prior decisions stating that continued at-will employment cannot constitute consideration for an employment agreement and found that the company's decision not to fire Brown created a unilateral contract that bound Brown to its provisions.
The upshot, for all you coding types, is to document, document, document. If you're working on a project independently of your job, make sure you document the fact that you're doing so off company time!"