Not a lawyer / this is my understanding. Yes, the firm owns the copyright to the code and is a form of intellectual property independent of patent.
Copyright is owned by the author (or entity that had work-for-hire agreements) at the moment of creation. As an author or someone that had access to proprietary information during it's creation, you can not rewrite it in a different language or transfer any knowledge to someone who is. it would violate the copyright. If an independent person saw the product and wanted to re-implement the functionality without access to the code or other proprietary information they could do so in a "clean room design" process: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design -Stephen _______________________________________________________________________ CEO, Simtable http://www.simtable.com 1600 Lena St #D1, Santa Fe, NM 87505 office: (505)995-0206 mobile: (505)577-5828 twitter: @simtable On Tue, Jul 2, 2019 at 4:13 PM Ron Newman <[email protected]> wrote: > P.S. A more subtle question is what if I rewrote the formerly-patented > application in a different language. Does a work-for-hire cover ideas? I > think it does. > > Ron Newman, M.S., M.M.E. > Founder, IdeaTreeLive.com <http://www.Ideatreelive.com> Knowledge Modeling > www.RonPiano.com > Blog <https://blog.ideatreelive.com> > > > > > > > On Tue, Jul 2, 2019 at 4:11 PM Ron Newman <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I think the patent, which is non-renewable, and the code implementing the >> patent are two separate things. The first they lose rights over, but the >> second is covered by a work-for-hire agreement since it could be used >> internally, or even sold as a product by the corporation without patent. >> But I could be wrong. >> >> Ron Newman, M.S., M.M.E. >> Founder, IdeaTreeLive.com <http://www.Ideatreelive.com> Knowledge >> Modeling >> www.RonPiano.com >> Blog <https://blog.ideatreelive.com> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> On Tue, Jul 2, 2019 at 4:06 PM Tom Johnson <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Would not the corporation have to renew the patent at some point? >>> Tom >>> >>> ============================================ >>> Tom Johnson - [email protected] >>> Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA >>> 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) >>> *NM Foundation for Open Government* <http://nmfog.org> >>> *Check out It's The People's Data >>> <https://www.facebook.com/pages/Its-The-Peoples-Data/1599854626919671>* >>> >>> ============================================ >>> >>> >>> On Tue, Jul 2, 2019 at 3:55 PM Ron Newman <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> I was awarded a software patent 30 years ago while at a corporate job. >>>> That patent has since expired, of course. I assume I signed a >>>> work-for-hire agreement the first day on that job. >>>> >>>> Now that it's expired, I also assume the corporation still owns the >>>> code, and so I'm not free to open source it. Correct? >>>> >>>> Any IP attorneys here? >>>> >>>> Ron Newman, M.S., M.M.E. >>>> Founder, IdeaTreeLive.com <http://www.Ideatreelive.com> Knowledge >>>> Modeling >>>> www.RonPiano.com >>>> Blog <https://blog.ideatreelive.com> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> ============================================================ >>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >>>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >>>> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ >>>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove >>>> >>> ============================================================ >>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >>> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ >>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove >>> >> ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove >
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
