Bill,

Interesting article about how developers take code from one company to the next. Of course any kind of copying of code is an automatic infringement on copyright, but there is a far more insidious implication that goes unnoticed in your article.

Lets say I work for company A, and they ask me to build something for them. As part of what I create I use a certain technique that I find works very well. I move on to company B who ask me to build something for them. I find that the same technique I used with company A would work just as well for company B....

What do I do?

Do I avoid the technique altogether because it would infringe on the IP of the company I was at when I created it? Do they own the technique itself or just the implementation? If I use my memory to re-code using the same technique (ie no direct copying of code done) am I breaching their IP? Or am I wasting company B's valuable time and resources by re-inventing the wheel the 10th time over by trying to use my memory to reconstruct the same thing I have created everywhere else?

You could look at two implementations using the same technique and see they were not copied, yet you could see similarities that are significant enough that some people may say its the same thing. Is it considered a pattern and thus not copyrightable? Do I call it MY pattern and put my own patent on it to stop others from using it? Can I put a patent on something which is a technique for doing something?

While some of these techniques may be broad enough to be non-specific (Factory, Controller, Facade, etc), other techniques are fairly specific yet highly re-usable across projects. As a developer I keep seeing a need for a certain implementation, so I keep re-inventing the wheel everywhere I go. Does intellectual property cover the "nuts and bolts" of programming or the use of it as a whole?

I can't help but feel that I am wasting their time by repeating the same thing over and over again when I already know the generic one I created previously already works. What if the new version of it that I coded from my mind misses some vital component? Am I not doing more of a disservice to the customer by NOT re-using code that I know has been tried and tested over and over again by creating something that tries to use my memory to reconstruct the principle?

Surely having a "toolbox" of useful code snippets which you know as a professional is already well tested and encapsulated, as well as being suitable for the purpose is a benefit to any company you bring it to. What I fear is that I do this "favour" for a company, and in return they try to take it off me by claiming it is now their intellectual property, when in reality I could have saved several hours of their time by not re-coding it from memory and costing them money in the process.