Does this belong to me or my company?

I work for a small office supply company. Every day, I go through the same tasks. One day, I decided to create a utility program to help me automate my tasks a little and save time. This utility was my idea and I worked on it only during my spare time at home (never on company time). When I finished it, I brought it into work and started using it. My boss saw it, and loved it.

Now, my company wants to market it as THEIR product. Who does this utility belong to, legally? Again, it was entirely my idea without consultation from the company, noone else worked on it, and I only worked on it on non-company time.

Thanks for any help!

You might win point that it was NOT a work related invention as nothing about it apparently was developed on company time with company equipment but as an individual you probably lack marketing outlet for product.

Might be a win win for a bartered --"our" product and a simple revenue splitting  agreement?

Without an agreement to the contrary, if you did it on company time with company equipment, it belongs to the company and they can do anything they want to with it.

Before you get much further into this spitting contest with your boss that could cost you your job and lots of money in attorney fees, I suggest you do an internet search for freeware, shareware or commercial software that may already do what your utility does.

Seems to me that whenever I look for little utilities for my computer, dozens turn up that do the same thing, many of them given away free by their developers.

Another alternative is to put your utility out on the internet as freeware. That'll stop the argument.

Your boss might just drop the issue if it turns out that there's no money in marketing it.

Was this developed on your personal computer or on a pc that the company ownes?