>Also, any code, techniques, methods, algorithms, etc., that you bring with you to the job remains yours, if they are not in the public domain. Anything you learn from the client, specific to the job, usually is the clients. Anything you create that didn't require propriatory knowledge divulged by the client reamins yours. At least, that is what your contract should say.

So, do the routines that I have developed over time and use regularly (some of the logic goes *way* back) remain my intellectual property even if embedded in something that I have written as an employee? After all I'm not going to reinvent the wheel every time I start a new project or join a new company -- that's just not realistic.

I appreciate that the employer hires me for my expertise,and pays me commensurately. If they wanted a novice they wouldn't specify "X year VFP experience, in XXX environment" nor would they pay as much.

However, if I use code that was originally developed by me independently of that particular employer, surely my being an employee does not transfer the copyright of that code to the employer. So far it has never been a problem for me, but if I was to employ these routines in a system, intended for that employer only, which was then packaged and sold on the open market I would have thought that I should be able to receive some sort of compensation for the fact that I had develped the code independently.

Of course the burden of proof lies with me... so unless I take my routines and copyright them *Before* I join company X then there's no way I can get royalties from them.

I think programmers have been screwed. We'd be better off as tabloid journalists!

Jen