Ha ha. Perhaps this is a manifestation of a broader principle, another instance of which is Conway's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law): organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.
I reckon this would be the reverse: the communications structure of a system ("IP" law) is a copy of the organization of the people who created it.
Ideas should be free, implementations shouldn't. As long as I'm not using the actual implementation of whatever I created for my employer, I should be free to use the idea of what I created for any otherwise legal purpose.
After all, isn't everything 90% perspiration?
Now we just need to define exactly what constitutes implementation.
I reckon this would be the reverse: the communications structure of a system ("IP" law) is a copy of the organization of the people who created it.