HACKER Q&A
📣 throwaway85467

How do you deal with “Obligation to Keep Informed” clauses?


I'm a creative person. Not just sometimes; it's a constant aspect of my day to day life. And not just in one way; it crosses domains. Art, writing, music, and yes, programming. I don't mind a reasonable noncompete, nor a reasonable assignment of inventions ("works created on company time or with company resources"). But I'm finding it exceedingly difficult to find a job offer that doesn't include an excessively broad "Obligation to Keep Informed" clause that requires me to tell my employer, in writing, of every single idea of any kind (not scoped to the employer's business) that I think of at any time (not scoped to working hours), just in case they might need to claim ownership of it via the other clauses.

How can any creative person live under this kind of blanket constraint? I may have several "ideas" every day, many of which might never get written down at all, but all of which would technically fall under the letter of these contracts.

How is this workable for anybody who does personal projects with any amount of regularity? Is this clause practically unavoidable in our industry? Do I need to change career paths to escape it?

I'm in Texas, for what it's worth

  👤 dragonwriter Accepted Answer ✓
I'd be tempted to spend my—and the recipients’—work time obsessively documenting and reporting trivial ideas until directed to stop, which direction I would be sure to document.
👤 davismwfl
The only answer is it must be scoped to their core business and the use of their resources, otherwise it is always a hard NO.

Sadly, these clauses have gotten more common and more broad as the years have gone by. The fact most fresh (and some senior) engineers/creatives just sign agreements with these unreasonable clauses is part of the problem. If people would say no more, companies would back off these clauses to not lose out on the talent.

I get people need to work, but the only way to stop it is through people standing up and saying no or legislation. I dislike adding more legislation in most cases, but unless the workers stand up and the employers feel the pressure, legislation may be the only way.

👤 tldrthelaw
Lawyer but not your lawyer, not legal advice, etc.

I'm not sure how enforceable the obligation to keep informed clause can really be, in and of itself. If you launch a competing business and violate the (I assume present) non-compete agreement clauses then sure. What remedies do the contracts provide for the breach? Termination? Can you provide sample language that we can take a look at?

As you suggest in the comments, I reckon this is mostly about keeping the employee contracts uniform. The lawyers don't "want" these clauses any more than you do; or, at the very least, they don't care one way or the other. Someone on the business side pushed it and they just went along.

👤 thek3nger
For me, it would be an unbearable clause. But the real question is: How is this even enforced? It looks like as a clause to justify the company for randomly invading the employee personal life.
👤 shoo
> I'm finding it exceedingly difficult to find a job offer that doesn't include an excessively broad "Obligation to Keep Informed" clause that requires me to tell my employer, in writing, of every single idea of any kind (not scoped to the employer's business) that I think of at any time (not scoped to working hours)

What happens when you ask to remove the clause or just strike it out with a pen?

👤 speedgoose
I never heard of this clause, but I only worked in Europe. So you could move to Europe. Sorry for the stupid answer.
👤 giantg2
"How can any creative person live under this kind of blanket constraint?"

I think there's the old saying of, "what they don't know won't hurt them". Keep it in your mind until free of that employer and they'll never know.

👤 tacostakohashi
How about just ignoring it?