Simplified Information Systems, Inc. v. Cannon
United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania
89 B.R. 538 (1988)

- Written by Kelli Lanski, JD
Facts
Dennis Cannon (defendant) worked for Simplified Information Systems, Inc. (SIS) as its president. SIS was formed to create and market a computer process that would help doctors’ offices perform scheduling and other clerical duties. Cannon was tasked with creating that computer process and signed an employment agreement promising to give his best efforts to discharging that duty. SIS paid him a weekly salary while he worked on the process. SIS ultimately filed for bankruptcy, and Cannon argued that the computer process belonged to him, not SIS. Cannon claimed that because he sometimes did his work after normal business hours or offsite, he owned the copyright for the computer process and had merely licensed it to SIS. SIS argued that the process belonged to SIS because Cannon created it in the scope of his work and subject to his employment agreement and the bankruptcy action did not impact SIS’s ownership rights. SIS filed a complaint to determine the scope of the bankruptcy estate, including ownership of the computer process.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Weber, J.)
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