Devils advocate (Score 1)

Seems like a very naive question.

(IANAL etc etc)

- do you _actually_ understand the legal ramifications of your state/country law with regards to work for hire and IP ownership?
- do you _actually_ understand the legal ramifications of any contracts you signed to gain employment?

Unless you are a lawyer, the answer to those questions is most certainly going to be 'no'. Thus the recommendations to 'get a lawyer'.

Playing devils advocate here for a bit, so you are saying that your company has paid you to develop this product. Paid you to think about the possible implementations, architecture, shortcomings, missing features etc etc.

Now you don't quite like the way the company is run, so you want to walk away with a bunch of people and put ideas into practice which you developed (at least in your head) while being employed by this company.

Here's a few questions I would ask you in court, if I was the defense lawyer (and again, not being a lawyer and all, they'd undoubtedly do a much better job):
- exactly during what time did you come up with this better design? Was it during working hours? At least part of it?
- how hard did you try to get this better architecture implemented at the company?
- even more troublesome: how hard did you try to NOT get this better architecture implemented at the company? I.e. did you think of it and never mention it?

The thing is, you are not working on the Cadillac assembly line. You are paid for working with your brain mostly.

This is definitely newer territory, but I'd be surprised if there wasn't enough precedence for a lawyer to give you good advice (and if I had to put money on it, I'd put it on "no freaking way is that a good idea").

Hey, I support the EFF; I don't like all of the craziness around IP, but when someone is paying you to do a job, I don't think it's unreasonable that they have *some* right to what they pay you for.

Here's what I would suggest, if you guys are a bunch of smart developers, why not create a product in a different market? There's so much stuff to be done, it's hard to believe that a bunch of smart people can't come up with a compelling product.

Alternatively, why don't you push for this better architecture inside the company a bit harder? Maybe go to your boss' boss. Yeah, that's not easy. Guess what, running your own business is a LOT harder. In many ways you may learn a lot from trying to sell your better architecture to the company.

Just a few thoughts...