Presenting paper at conference if leaving company
Presenting paper at conference if leaving company
(OP)
I'm looking for opinions on my situation.
I currently work for Company A.
There are a few professional conferences that have abstract submission deadlines in the next few weeks. I have some ideas that I'd like to present a paper on. The basis of the paper(s) will be from work done while employed at Company A.
The two main conferences I wish to present at are held near the end of the year (Sept and Oct respectively).
I am actively engaged in looking for a new job and am serious enough in the discussions with another company that there's a high probability I won't be employed by Company A in Sept.
Couple questions:
1) If my papers are accepted, should I still present even though the basis of the work and data is from project work done at/by Company A?
2) If I should be accepted, and then leave, should I give Company A a heads up and ask permission to still present? (Despite me personally doing the analysis and coming up with the paper etc.)
3) Who actually owns the rights of the paper i.e. I know I can include it in my CV, but do papers have owners?
Any feedback is appreciated.
I currently work for Company A.
There are a few professional conferences that have abstract submission deadlines in the next few weeks. I have some ideas that I'd like to present a paper on. The basis of the paper(s) will be from work done while employed at Company A.
The two main conferences I wish to present at are held near the end of the year (Sept and Oct respectively).
I am actively engaged in looking for a new job and am serious enough in the discussions with another company that there's a high probability I won't be employed by Company A in Sept.
Couple questions:
1) If my papers are accepted, should I still present even though the basis of the work and data is from project work done at/by Company A?
2) If I should be accepted, and then leave, should I give Company A a heads up and ask permission to still present? (Despite me personally doing the analysis and coming up with the paper etc.)
3) Who actually owns the rights of the paper i.e. I know I can include it in my CV, but do papers have owners?
Any feedback is appreciated.





RE: Presenting paper at conference if leaving company
Since you did it on company time - they own it. If you leave - you might ask nicely if you can have a copy and presentation rights. Good luck with that...
RE: Presenting paper at conference if leaving company
You don't know what might happen by September so the best bet is to assume you will be still employed and able to give the paper. The time to worry about the question is in September. By then your paper might change significantly anyway, or you may be able to sanitise your paper if necessary.
Giving papers is partly for the company benefit but it is also partly for your own benefit so don't give up this opportunity.
The questions you need to ask yourself are whether there is any confidential or proprietary information going to be included or any IP.
Now most conferences and seminars where I have given papers the ostensible objective is non-commercial but that doesn't mean that the employer won't benefit in some way.
It is assumed that there will be benefits for your employer whether you work for them or not, if it involves any product of their's so what do they care if you make them look good for free?
So let us assume that when September comes you are no longer employed by this company, what do you do?
There are a couple of options:
[il]
Of coarse, if your paper is largely based on company proprietary information whether you work for them or not, the usual goal is to show the company to advantage but it would be a rare paper that gave away commercial advantage or sensitive material. So the chances of the employer being upset ought to be remote.
If in doubt in any area, you really need to discuss the paper with your employer. You don't need to do this now. September is fine.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Presenting paper at conference if leaving company
RE: Presenting paper at conference if leaving company
It really depends on what is in the paper and how that impacts on how your current and future employers compete.
If the paper partly relies on resources only available at your current employer or refers to their previous contracts, there may well be a problem, however if you could easily have gained this content at the new employers, you are entitled to use the similar resources at the new employer.
You should not disclose the proprietor knowledge belonging to one employer, however you are not compelled to have a lobotomy every time you change jobs.
There are grey areas in what you own and what the company owns once you leave.
When I worked in sales, customer lists and sales stats are considered proprietary. That meant I could not take copies of lists with me. It did not mean that after I left I could not recreate those lists from publicly available sources and continue to use personal relationships which had developed, so long as the new company already knew of the customer or the customer sought me out.
Regards
Pat
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RE: Presenting paper at conference if leaving company
This was one of the thoughts in my post before I edited it down. (I referred to a memory wipe). But it can't be long.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Presenting paper at conference if leaving company
Unless what you are presenting is proprietary and unique to your former employer, don't worry about it...just give the presentation and move on.
RE: Presenting paper at conference if leaving company
So for a paper in the Fall, the organization would require Company A to agree in writing and you would have to assign the Copyright by sometime before Spring. If all that happens it really doesn't matter who you're working for in the Fall.
David
RE: Presenting paper at conference if leaving company
I've never had to sign any such forms. That isn't to say that the publisher or conference organsisers don't assume the ccopywrite (it may be in the small print somewhere), just that none of the organisations I have dealt with have made a big deal of it.
Also, once I've written an article there is no financial benefit in it for me. I still have access to my own article and others have access through a variety of ways.
Some publishers (e.g. Hydrocarbon Engineering, back a good few years) would sell you reprints for distribution. Interestingly it is one of those articles where my old company has made some cosmetic changes and republished as a company white paper under some one else's name. So it isn't me who has to worry about the copywrite on that one. (interesting thought though, they could be the ones at risk for using the material and not me!).
Another publisher gave me a box of magazines gratis for distribution.
I assume the same deal does apply to papers given at conference but I don't remember ever having to assign the copywrite.
OK, this is mostly industry conference papers but a joint paper I gave at a Texas A&M Instrumentation symposium didn't involve such agreements either.
The question is the extent to which publishers and conference organisers are willing to exert their copywrite and at what point papers are no longer commercially valuable to them, something that is seemingly changing with the internet.
Conference organisers will issue a CDRom with the papers to delegates and as often as not will publish the papers on their internet sites where they are accessible to subscribers from some and to anyone with others.
Of course, there may not be enough money in most articles to make enforcement of copywrite worth while. I don't know. Then too, I am not sure to what extent putting articles/papers behind a financial barrier is a good thing or a bad thing. Good initially perhaps but older articles ought, I guess, to be more freely available.
So, one might suppose that once written and submitted, the company has no rights in the article. They only perhaps have rights regarding proprietary knowledge and commercially sensitive information.
So if you write the paper now, and submit it before you leave, your employer probably has absolutely no say on your giving the paper come conference time.
All you have to do is insert the word "Formerly" before your name and credits in the final paper. Of course, you can vary the papers contents later on. This is implicitly "by the consent of the organiser".
By the way, it is a good feeling to see your papers referenced by others and from that to know that your work has been one of the bricks in the foundation of other peoples work and has a part in moving knowledge forward. For that reason alone, writing articles and giving papers is worth doing.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: Presenting paper at conference if leaving company
Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: Presenting paper at conference if leaving company
David
RE: Presenting paper at conference if leaving company
Regarding the issue of getting Company A's permission, I'll be moving to a competitor and, based on history of previous employees, they absolutely won't give an inch (if asked).
The paper will certainly be purged of anything that discloses IP etc, and to a large extent, I don't get reimbursed for this (i.e. papers don't count for bonsues, pay etc.) - I do this on my own dime (but during work hrs).
RE: Presenting paper at conference if leaving company
You need to start doing this on the weekends and to be real carefull that the content is generic.
You do not need to miss the oportunity. You just need to do it right.
In my opinion generic works best anyway.
Regards
Pat
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RE: Presenting paper at conference if leaving company
If you do switch jobs to a competitor, then you I would think your curret company would have to grant you permission to present a paper on work done for that company. There is nothing you do that uses company time or resources that you can claim as being "on my own dime". Even writting the paper on weekends or evenings, you are still using company data for the basis of your paper.
"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."
Ben Loosli
RE: Presenting paper at conference if leaving company
RE: Presenting paper at conference if leaving company
Last year an engineering society I belong to in NYC presented a lecture about a major transportation project. When I first read the flyer I thought there was a typo because it said the lecturer was Mr. X from XYZ, even though his firm had nothing to do with the project, as it was designed by ZYX. During the presentation, the speaker credited his old firm.
RE: Presenting paper at conference if leaving company