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Employment agreement roadblock. Any advice?

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Sintwar

Junior Member
Hello,

I have been working on a business for the past year and a half, and am almost ready to go live with it, but my Employment agreement with my current employer has me a little concerned. I am wondering what I can do about it, or if I even need to do anything about it.

I work for a gaming related company. They provide website hosting targeted at gamers, and have a gaming news website.

In my free time at home, I have been working on creating a game server (a Minecraft server to be specific), where players will have an option to purchase in-game items and ranks through a store on my website.

As far as a business model, what I am doing does not compete with anything my employer is doing, however he has rented a Minecraft server in the past, which he used as more of an advertising gimmick to promote his actual business. The server is no longer online, and he never used it as a source of revenue. Basically "Running a Minecraft server" is not part of his business description.

He is fully aware of what I am doing and has been since the start. I have described in detail during lunches what I am doing, and how I am planning to run it. We are for the most part pretty friendly with each other, and he is a pretty straight forward and overall friendly and honest sort of person. One thing I am mildly concerned about is that he has joked once saying "So what am I getting out of all of this since you have used my computer to work on this?". Not entirely true, but there is some semblance of underlying truth to it in a sense.

On my lunch breaks I play Minecraft at my desk. Not a problem, since we all play games on our lunch breaks. Thing is, Minecraft is a creative game, where you can build just about anything you can imagine in the world. The server I am creating is a static world with dungeons and traps, etc. I had spent some time on a few lunch breaks in Minecraft fiddling around with the game mechanics in order to better understand how to build better traps. Knowledge I would later use to build traps for my server in my own free time. I didn't actually do any of the work at work.

So, I am not that worried about it, but I do want to make sure I have all of my bases covered before I go live with this thing.
Making sure my employer doesn't (or can't) sue me if this thing actually takes off is the last hurdle I have before I finally go live.

These lines are in the employment agreement:

"Employee shall promptly communicate and disclose to Employer all inventions, improvements, modifications, discoveries, designs, formulae, methods and processes made, discovered or conceived by Employee either alone or jointly with others, during the period of his employment with Employer, providing the same relate to and have the possibility of being used by Employer or any affiliate thereof in the normal course of their businesses.

Employee acknowledges and declares that all such inventions, improvements, modifications, discoveries, designs, formulae, methods, processes and all patents and patent applications relating thereto are the property of Employer and hereby assigns to Employer all of the right, title and interest of Employee in any such inventions, improvements, modifications, discoveries, designs, formulae, methods and processes, and in any patents or patent applications relating thereto. Employee shall execute all instruments and documents and do all such further acts and things as may be necessary or desirable, in Employer's reasonable opinion, to carry out the provisions of this paragraph."

So far, I have registered an LLC, I have a tax ID, a business bank account and a business license. I have rented the server, payed for website hosting, and commissioned someone to help me build part of the world. I built the website and setup the server myself.

What I need to know is, do I have anything to be concerned about as far as my Employment agreement? Is there something I can or should do in order to safeguard my hard work just in case? Is there something I can or should have him sign?

Thank you for any advice you can offer.
 


Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
I am in the US. Virginia.
I would suggest that you take your employment agreement, in its entirety, to a local employment law attorney for advice. What you are asking for (a contract review) is beyond the scope of this (or any) forum.
 

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