[Paul T]

a.At night, Buster works as a janitor for GAME1 to earn money for college. Buster’s supervisor allows him to game during his lunch hour. Rather than gaming during his lunch breaks, Buster uses the super fast computers at GAME1 to start sketching out his own game ideas.
b.As part of his usual cleaning routine, Buster waxes the office floors. Just before reaching main lobby, Buster ran out of the usual floor wax. Zed, one of Buster’s supervisors, had “just the fix”. Zed gave Buster a case of car wax he had in his trunk and told him to finish the job so the building could open on time at 8:00 am. The floor had never looked brighter. By 8:05am, however, the lobby looked like a freeway in an ice storm. The first customer, Abe, took one step before going tail over tea kettle. Julie, the second customer, was reading the paper while talking on her phone and carefully balancing her coffee. The momentum from her determined stride brought her skittering into direct contact with Abe, breaking his nose. Abe made a move toward Julie with his fist raised. She cowered. When Abe regained his composure. He yelled, “Stupid! If you’d been paying attention, you wouldn’t have broken my nose.” Discuss negligence including defenses and any additional intentional torts you believe may be present.
c.The next night Mr. Big, an executive, notices Buster working on a game and sees something interesting. Big sits down and Buster proceeds to tell Big about his idea. Buster meets with Big a few times over the next few months and Big provides suggestions. Buster offers to buy Big lunch for his time or to otherwise pay him. Big states he is happy to help an employee and can be paid later for the real worth of his contribution.
i.Who might own Buster’s work? (from an IP standpoint)
ii.If the company does not own the work what might Buster owe Big if his product becomes a huge success? (Contract?)
d.On June 15, GAME1 sent Buster a letter, via overnight delivery, offering to employ him to design games for a year at a salary of $100,000. In the letter, GAME1 states that Buster has ten days to accept. On June 19, Buster sent GAME1 a fax that stated, “the amount offered for my services seems too low, would you consider paying $120,000 per year?” GAME1 received the fax. The next day, Jim (a classmate of Buster’s who was also a solid game programmer) overheard a conversation regarding the offer and called Big to ask if GAME1 would hire him for the work instead of Buster. Jim offered to do the job for only $80,000. Upon learning of Jim’s offer, Buster immediately e-mailed GAME1 and agreed to do the work for $100,000. GAME1 received this e-mail on June 22. Explain why GAME1 and Buster do or do not have a contract and what options, if any, GAME1 has.