My contract states the below:
I assume this means, even things i make in my personal time would belong to the company?
I wonder how enforceable that really is as that would suggest that they would be preventing you from fulfilling personal desires/projects?
All works embodying Intellectual Property Rights made wholly or partially by you at any time during the course of your employment shall automatically, on creation, vest in the Company absolutely
I assume this means, even things i make in my personal time would belong to the company?
Not exactly. If you build a bookshelf, that remains your personal tangible property. It only addresses intellectual property rights, for example copyright and patents.
Interpreting the clause itself is challenging.
All works embodying Intellectual Property Rights made wholly or partially by you at any time during the course of your employment shall automatically, on creation, vest in the Company absolutely
There is a bit of horse-cart inversion here, in that IP rights follow from the embodiment (expression) of an intellectual process, and do not exist in advance of actually creating a thing. You could ask them what they mean by this, but you would want to do that in a fashion that is legally binding – ordinarily by clarifying the contractual language.
The other thing to notice is that the clause says "during the course of your employment", which is different from "in the course of your employment" – during the course is broader that in the course. Again, you can ask if they really mean "in the course", but what you really care about, I would guess, is what would be enforceable in court. For example, if you are hired to proofread manuscripts but have a hobby of writing computer code, you might think that the company has no right to whatever software you wrote while working for them. That's what the contract says, so then you would have to come up with a compelling argument that that is not what the words mean.
Your best hope, in that case, would be to argue that the plain language of the contract is so unreasonable that there never was an agreement in the first place; that's the kind of argument that needs case law support and structuring by a lawyer.
The answer is that you ask them exactly what "during the course of your employment" means. That is actually the best course of action if you want to avoid trouble.
It does not mean "during your usual working hours", because you can be working overtime. When you are working from home, many people work eight hours a day, but at quite irregular times. On the other hand, it doesn't cover 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
A good distinction is whether what you did fit into your normal employment. If you are hired to write software, and in your spare time you write the sequel to "War and Peace", then it is hard to argue that this would be covered. But if you did something that your manager could have asked you to do, that is more against you.
But best is to avoid that trouble and ask them what the words mean, and put it into the contract - unless you disagree obviously. What is not acceptable is the company saying "but we would never do that". If they would never try to get you to give up the rights to your novel, then they can put that into the contract.
One company I know might the distinction: If you worked in Research and Development then any invention you made was theirs. In the contract. Anyone else, you could make good money by inventing something that helped the company.
