Can you sell a component you designed for your company separately to a non-competing market? 3

[MDGroup]

While designing a products for your company, there are many smaller sub-assemblies and components that get integrated into the final product. After the product design is completed, many of those components are used solely in the final product. Can I re-package the concept I designed and sell it separately?

Here's a completely made-up example but hopefully it conveys the basic idea:

You work for a freezer manufacturer and are tasked to design a lock that can be attached to the outside of the freezer to prevent someone form opening it.
Now, all of the company's freezers include this lock. They have no plans to sell the lock as a separate item to consumers.
I would like to take the lock assembly, repackage it, and sell it myself. It can be sold to people who have any brand of freezer. It can also be sold to people to lock their sheds, tool boxes, desks, cabinets or anything similar.

Similar example:
You work for a company that makes hair dryers. You design a heating element for them that is more reliable, more efficient, and cheaper than anything that has been used before.
Can I take that heating element I designed and make my own new heat gun and sell it to the electronics industry?

Is it acceptable for me to take a product I designed for my company, modify it, and then market it on my own?

Suppose I don't work for the company. Suppose I am a consumer that bought one of the freezers/hair dryers and really liked how they worked. Can I take that design, make it myself, and try to sell it to whoever I can? Is it any different?

Thoughts?

 

[IRstuff]

"sold the design to a local company"

Was he working for that company? Was it a non-exclusive sale?

TTFN
faq731-376

 

[DRWeig]

Well, this is an ethics forum and not a legal one.

Go get a lawyer for a legal opinion. Here's my ethical opinion:

Forgetting the legal issue for now, suppose that:

1. I work for you.
2. You assign me a product to design.
3. You pay me money, per hour or per whatever to work for you.
4. I take the work that you paid me to produce for you and go make personal money by producing and selling it on my own.
5. I didn't ask you first, still haven't told you about it, and you haven't found out yet.

Man, I would NOT be able to look at myself in the mirror after that without thinking, "Lousy thief." It doesn't matter that I'm selling it into an unrelated market. I stole the idea and the original design, not the sales.

That's my personal ethic at work. Yours may differ.

Best to you,

Goober Dave

Haven't see the forum policies? Do so now: Forum Policies

 

[MDGroup]

Thanks for all the responses. It is apparent the overwhelming response is that it isn't a good idea. Only way would be to get direct permission from the company beforehand.

Goober Dave's remarks do lead to a different question regarding the experience and information you learn while on the job:

I work for a company for 10 years designing different products. On their money I have hopefully learned a great deal about design, materials, techniques, ...
Now, I leave the company and start working at a new job. All of that knowledge is going to go with me correct?

Suppose I work for a company that designs consumer electronics. I come up with a design that prevents the electronics from getting ruined if too much voltage is applied.
I leave my job and start working for a toy company. Can I use what I have learned at my previous job to apply this same technique to the toys I am designing?

So, from Goober Dave's post:
1. I work for you.
2. You assign me a product to design.
3. You pay me money, per hour or per whatever to work for you.
4. I take the work that you paid me to produce for you and go make personal money by producing and selling it on my own use that knowledge while designing a product for my next employer.
5. I didn't ask you first, still haven't told you about it, and you haven't found out yet.

Is this now acceptable? Or do I have to completely forget everything I have learned while working for the first company when I leave?

 

[MiketheEngineer]

Yes - we ALL use the previous info we learned at earlier jobs. That is part of the learning and growing process. But to flatly copy something - not so good....

 

[IRstuff]

"Now, I leave the company and start working at a new job. All of that knowledge is going to go with me correct?"

Up to a point. What is considered to be company proprietary or trade secrets must remain with the old company. There have been suits filed where the likes of Google, Yahoo, etc., poached each other's employees, and were promptly sued for improper acquisition of trade secrets of the old company. Again, if it passes the duck test, then it's most likely OK.

In your example, to "use that knowledge" is where you can, and will, get into trouble, particularly, as in my crude example, your former company finds a lock on a medicine cabinet that looks suspiciously like the lock you designed for them for their refrigerator, questions will be raised.

TTFN
faq731-376

 

[MiketheEngineer]

IR brings up some good points. My post was for "general" info learned on the job - not proprietary info which is "owned" by the old comapy/

 

[DRWeig]

It does get complicated, doesn't it?

I suppose that if you tell your company the idea, the response will be all over the map.
[ul]
[li]We're not interested in that market, feel free to tackle it yourself on personal time. Good luck, hope you make a mint![/li]
[li]Wow, what an idea! Take it to marketing and tell them to get busy. [compensation: hearty handclasp and slap-on-the-back][/li]
[li]Wow, nice thinking. Take it to marekting and tell them to get busy. [compensation: massive bonus and lion's share of the gross profits][/li]
[/ul]


Best to you,

Goober Dave

Haven't see the forum policies? Do so now: Forum Policies

 

[looslib]

Max did not work for either company that I am aware of and obviously he sold them each a non-exclusive copy of his design. Max was a farmer and wanted a better potato harvester than he could currently buy. His design was a step forward for the time, early 1970's.


"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli

 

[spongebob007]

You need a lawyer to navigate these waters for you. Non-compete and non-disclousre agreements are common. Some even try to extend to things you invent on your own time while employed with the company or for a period of time after you leave. How enforcable these things really are is up to the courts to decide. If you were to take something you designed and modified it enough and sold it in a different market you might have a legal leg to stand on.

As far as your example of not working for the company, it depends. If the refrigerator lock was not patented I beleive you could copy it and do whatever you wanted. Even if there is a patent, if you are using it for a new application and make enough changes to the design to not infirnge on the intellectual property you can do it. How easily it can be done really depends on how well the original patent was written and how it is worded. You would really need the services of a patent attorney for this. It can be done because I have such a patent.

Bottom line though, is that if I ever come up with that million dollar idea, whether it is related to my job or not, I'm going to keep it to myself until I quit my job and any agreements I signed with my employer expire.

 

[spongebob007]

Granted you would have to go out on your own, but getting permission to sell a component of a product to a different market may not be as crazy as it sounds. Maybe managment doesn't want to put the effort and risk into trying to penetrate into a new market. It's not as easy to do as it sounds, and even if you have the better mousetrap, I have seen it done before. In one case the former employee bought the equipment from the former employer, modified it for his business and turned around and sold it in a different market. In another case the former employer and the former employee who went out on his own have a non-compete agreement between them so that they can't work in each others market.