Let’s say you’re a scientist. Your employer sets you up in a lab (that you could never afford on your own) and gives you the task of solving a problem that, if solved, would be worth millions to the company. One night you go home thinking about the tough problem. The next morning at home you have a shower and suddenly you realize the solution!

Who owns the solution? Did you solve it by yourself? Can you now take the solution and launch your own company? If the company puts itself up for sale can they claim ownership of the solution?

This is why in the U.S. these “the company owns everything while you’re our employee” clauses exist. Consider them legal laziness: It’s easier to declare ownership of everything than it is to negotiate with every employee over who owns what under what circumstance.

Edit: These clauses are enough to take to trial. At the very least a deep-pocketed employer can scare off investors from investing in the employee.

I am of course talking about innovations or just work done in unrelated areas, while employed.

The idea that an employer owns everything you create is offensive to human dignity and happily that is not how it works in Europe.

You are even encouraged to start your own company, in some countries you have a legally enshrined right to take a LOA for six months and work on your business, and then come back to your old employer.