Ethical?? 6

[CuriousElectron]

Hi,
I'd like to hear your honest opinion regarding an ethical dilemma I'm facing. I have saved a few d esign pro jects from my former employer that I sometimes use as a technical resource on my new job. My counscience is eating at me for not deleting the pdfs after leaving the employer, specially considering that i have not contributed much to those p rojects. I also dont have a good technical resource at my curremt place of employment, which I feel contributes to this dimemma, otherwise I would have deleted those d ocuments. I dont see any issues with keeping p rojects from the past for which i served as d esign engineer.

Thoughts?
Thanks,
EE

 

[glass99]

CWB1 - agreed that innovation is important and maybe things are a little different in the manufacturing and product world where intellectual property is used as a primary mode of controlling competitors, but in the construction world you have to file drawings with your local Department of Buildings. Every project where clients are secretive and employ NDA's comes out more expensive and with more problems because of lack of communication.

 

[IRstuff]

China has gotten very strong in AI and hypersonic aerodynamics. The latter is of particular concern to the US, since we've actually fallen behind on hypersonics, and there really wasn't anything to copycat, since it's all strategic military IP.

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[BridgeSmith]

IRstuff, my commentary (and CWB1's, I presume) was directed towards how China, etc. got to the position they're in now, by mass-producing knock-off consumer products based on innovative research and development done by others over the last 30 years or so.

 

[IRstuff]

Yes, I understood that; my point was that that was the way to innovation in the future; California wines started that way, in a way. When starting out, there's not much else to compete on except cost and stealing technology. China did that with the silk trade, essentially stealing silkworm "IP" from Japan and undercutting them.

It's not clear to me there is ever a 3rd world starting position that can do without copycatting and stealing IP.

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[MacGyverS2000]

China has gotten very strong in AI and hypersonic aerodynamics. The latter is of particular concern to the US, since we've actually fallen behind on hypersonics, and there really wasn't anything to copycat, since it's all strategic military IP.

You do realize they've stolen a slew of IP in those fields from American military contractors, right? They didn't buy something sold off the shelf and reverse engineer it, they broke into "secured" servers and took the data directly.

Pretty easy to jump to the head of the line in any research topic when you can let someone else do/pay for the work for you.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[BridgeSmith]

How much of China's economic strength is built on IP theft could be debated, probably endlessly. However, to use their current situation to suppose that IP theft bolsters future innovation is a supposition with several logical fallacies, and it really doesn't even pass the 'smell test', does it?

 

[IRstuff]

Yes, it does; innovation is expensive, regardless of where the IP comes from. You cannot build 8th gen i7s using the photolithography tools used on the 6th gen i7s. So, you need to have massive amounts of monies to build hypersonic aircraft or quantum computers. Both of these are lagging in the US, by comparison. These monies come from having a trade surplus. So, not only did they steal IP from us, we're also funding their ability to leapfrog us.

Alternately, you can look at Africa, and only one country, South Africa, comes close competing with us, because they've got a viable trade position. Of course, the rest of Africa has other problems like genocide, internecine warfare, and massive corruption.

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[BridgeSmith]

You make a fair case that capital is necessary for development of innovations. I don't think you're making a good case that IP theft increases innovation. Human nature being what it is (selfish), IP theft undoubtedly destroys the incentive for people to innovate, though.

 

[glass99]

In the book Gun Germs and Steel the author makes the argument that technology spreads more by virtue of knowing that a certain idea is possible, not necessarily by direct imitation. For example, if stone age man sees a chunk of cast iron, he can focus his effort on creating the same without fear that its a dead end.

 

[Agent666]

Back on the original topic:-

As per the original query I don't personally have an issue keeping or referencing stuff I personally worked on, be it example project calculations, reference drawings, personal spreadsheets developed on company time for specific purposes, etc. Certainly our local professional licencing requires you to maintain evidence of past work practice for the purposes of 4-6 yearly reviews on your Chartered Professional Engineer status, and you can quite easily have a number of employers during that time and sourcing these examples after the fact can be quite challenging.

I wouldn't/don't keep stuff by others like company spreadsheets (etc), but main reason is they usually have a high percentage chance of containing errors and/or I cannot follow how they work and there is very little in the way of formal verification (basically no one knows who wrote them, and I don't fully trust them without taking them for a serious test drive to determine if they are in fact a well oiled machine or an old rust bucket). This is as opposed to this stance being primarily a question of maintaining/respecting a firms IP. Most stuff like this is better to recreate yourself from the same principles so you understand how it works (and hopefully discover all the errors others made).

Drawings & specifications/calculations unless confidential are in the public domain and are easily sourced from local authorities in this part of the world, so any member of the public can effectively obtain them.

Previous employers have benefited from the tools/templates I have created, to some degree these things were produced on my own time and were produced for my own personal use in the first instance. I simply let them use them and I left jobs with the terms that I would no longer support them after I was gone but they could continue to use them and develop them further if they so desired. I'm sure the law would say it then belongs to them, but I've always thought if it comes to it they are welcome to pay me for all the free time I have poured into the development of these things for my own use if you are saying you own them.

I have had people who left my previous employer turn up with my own personal spreadsheets and use them at another employer, much to the disgust of my employer at the time as they felt it gave them an advantage compared to their competitors. Initially I was ok with the fact that others were using these things, but considering some of the effort (hundred of hours) that went into some of my own tools and the fact that I was sometimes finding and correcting errors which they would not subsequently benefit from, I have since changed my mind on this aspect (liability comes into it, and also the older it gets it just pisses me off when someone I didn't respect walks off with my hard work). I have since this event taken active measures to protect my spreadsheets (they will not function unless certain parameters that are unique to a company network are present plus a whole raft of other protection measures to prevent/minimise reuse or adaption outside of my current employers environment).

I've also seen some of the companies I have peer reviewed designs for turn up with identical spreadsheets/CAD templates from other companies, because some guy left to form a new company and appear to have taken everything with them as a starting point.

I've also heard of one local architectural company that went after another local company for IP theft related to the use of the architectural companies Revit template (supposedly gained when an employee jumped ship).

 

[IRstuff]

Yes, IP theft can increase innovation in the country doing the stealing, by the simple fact of them having enough money to do so. It's not possible for organic trade nor simple second-sourcing to provide the profits in-country to fuel innovation, since second-sources are usually low-margin operations.

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[BridgeSmith]

"...IP theft can increase innovation in the country doing the stealing, by the simple fact of them having enough money to do so."

So, you contend it's better that the thief gets the money, because, having started out being so lazy and dishonest as to steal someone else's work, they will suddenly become better innovators them the original innovator that they stole the IP from? I think I would rather the smart one that had the original idea, profit from the idea than the thief who stole it. Far better chance of the original innovator continuing to innovate, than the thief to turn a 180 and suddenly be interested in developing things on their own. Countries or individuals, innovators stay innovators, and thieves remain thieves.

 

[GregLocock]

I'm inclined not to get too panty-twisted over IP protection, one of the better inventors I met (but I can't remember which one) said that the patent system is so comprehensively useless in any practical way other than lining lawyer's pockets, your best bet as an innovator was to take your good ideas further faster than the copiers. While they are reverse engineering your old stuff you are taking the lessons already learned and feeding it into your new stuff.

Cheers

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[IRstuff]

"I think I would rather the smart one that had the original idea, profit from the idea than the thief who stole it."

That's like Lillienthal, who invented the JFET transistor, but without a semiconductor industry to manufacture it. So, he got a patent and a footnote in history.

Without infrastructure and investors and an accessible market, an invention is not particularly useful. Moreover, if there's no organic industry going on, how would you even think to invent something in the first place. I'm having trouble imagining people in Uganda coming up with a better flash memory chip design.

And, it's not necessarily the actual thief that gets ultimate benefit, but the people that work in the factories cranking out copies, the investors that make enough money to fund the next idea, the industries that sprout up to provide manufacturing equipment for the copycatters, etc. I'm not contending that this is "better" or moral; it's just an interpretation of history.

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[glass99]

IRStuff: if you are talking about economics and society, for sure it matters much who works in the factories etc. But we Eng-Tips members have a much better chance of being the next Lillienthal or Tesla than Musk or Edison.

 

[BridgeSmith]

Before the world became interconnected the way it is, IP protection (patent laws) gave inventors in the US incentive to innovate, and the US advanced rapidly and became prosperous because of it. When the markets became global, and the protections of US patent law did not extend to China, etc., allowing the theft of IP. Innovation and advancement in the US slowed, and China got rich off the innovations of others. Technological advancement nearly stalled for several decades, as those who worked their butts off to create advancements watched others profit from them, and decided it was no longer worth the effort. That's my "interpretation of history".

 

[MotorCity]

Employment is a two way street. As such, there are mutual benefits to the employer and employee.

The employer relies on your experience and expertise, and their reward is a profitable thriving business.

The employee provides his/her services to the employer, and in turn is rewarded with a paycheck and experience.
Experience is something that cannot be lost, once you have it.....you have it (good or bad).

Technical resources are merely a tool used during your experience.
Since we do not have photographic memories, we should not be forced to forfeit the benefits of our experience simply because we cannot remember the content of those resources.

That said, I believe you are entitled to only carry with you resources that you personally used and your last employer did not have to purchase.
(In other words, you can't help yourself to a free copy of an ACI publication when everyone else is paying $100 for it.....that's stealing. But it you want to make use of standards or details that worked
well on a project, then go ahead.)

 

[HamburgerHelper]

Things I think get kind of gray when it gets into stuff that is not patent-able or at least your former employer will think so when you are designing every project in the exact same way that you were taught and learned at your old company. There is a lot of stuff that carries over because it works. If I setup my breaker failure a certain way or build a panel a certain way, that isn't anything that is patentable but my former employer will be annoyed with me with them putting in the sweat to create it and me just walking out the door and using it as my own. In video game programs, there is a lot of code and routines that get used again if they were developed by the same developer. Congo Bongo has a whole bunch of routines that are the exact same as in Donkey Kong. John Carmack got in trouble at Occulous for blatently stealing code from a former employer but to me that is a little different. I worked at a relay manufacture that ridiculously protective of their main-tie-main relay logic even though it was a bloated mess that no field guy or engineer could ever quickly figure out. I don't know. If someone walking out with a general method of how to do something is a threat, how good were you at your job to begin with? Am I supposed to have my brain wiped clean when I walked out the door?

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[IRstuff]

"Am I supposed to have my brain wiped clean when I walked out the door? "

No, but there are things that one simply does not reveal to future employers. For instance, if I have some classified information, by law, I keep those secrets to the grave. Doesn't require brain wiping, just straightforward compartmentalization.

Likewise, there are proprietary things that should be treated similarly, if for no other reason than to protect, or prevent embarrassment of, the guilty. In any case, if a company deems certain things to be their "secret sauce," so be it. If you find an alternate source of that secret sauce that can be documented and withstand legal scrutiny, then that's a different matter.

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[truckandbus]

I get the sense from the original post that the OP is using content that he didn't develop and that there is no comparable technical resource at his current position.

There is a real danger in applying an existing solution to a new situation if the mechanics behind the existing solution are not understood