You graduated as a mechanical engineer five years ago, taking ajob as a trainee engineer with a major automotive manufacturer.Since you were not happy with this company, you left three yearsago to work for Hallmark, a large UK-based engineering consultancycompany with several important offices worldwide. Hallmark commonlycontract-out their employees to other companies (many consultanciesdo this). These often involve Hallmark engineers working for manymonths (sometimes years) at the other company, forming closeworking relationships with the company's engineers and other staff,and being party to information and data that are confidential tothe company.
Soon after you started at Hallmark, they contracted you to workfor PartCo Ltd, a large company that designs and manufacturesautomotive parts (PartCo often contract with Hallmark for engineerswhen PartCo has important work that requires extra staff). PartCois a worldwide organisation and does business with most UK,European and Japanese automobile manufacturers. You joined a groupdoing relatively routine, but highly demanding, work on clarifyingthe design details for a new range of constant velocity (CV) jointsfor front-wheel drives. This required computer-based
engineering simulations of the parts, testing of prototypes, andfinal assurance of the products before the designs were releasedfor manufacturing.
Whilst you have been doing this, you got a really good idea fora completely new type of CV joint. You have worked on the idea atweek-ends and now believe that it could revolutionise vehiclepropulsion. You have continued to work privately on this idea afterreturning to Hallmark to work on other, non-automotive, jobs.
You have told no-one at either PartCo or Hallmark of yourprivate activities on the new CV joints.
Questions
(i) What intellectual property (IP) is involved here?
(ii) Who owns it?
(iii) If you wished to secure and exploit rights to the new CVjoint, how would you go about it?
(iv) Could you justify your actions ethically?
