The Right To Employee Inventions In Patent Law

"Although employers are required to pay compensation for employee inventions under the laws in many countries, existing legal literature has never critically examined whether such compensation actually gives employee inventors an incentive to invent as the legislature intends. This book addresses the issue through reference to recent, large-scale surveys on the motivation of employee inventors (in Europe, the United States and Japan) and studies in social psychology and econometrics, arguing that the compensation is unlikely to boost the motivation, productivity and creativity of employee inventors, and thereby encourage the creation of inventions. It also discusses the ownership of inventions made by university researchers, giving due consideration to the need to ensure open science and their academic freedom. Challenging popular assumptions, this book provides a solution to a critical issue by arguing that compensation for employee inventions should not be made mandatory regardless of jurisdiction because there is no legitimate reason to require employers to pay it. This means that patent law does not need to give employee inventors an 'incentive to invent' separately from the 'incentive to innovate' which is already given to employers."--Résumé de l'éditeur.

Businesses need to understand the value in inventions, but do not always fully appreciate the relationship between their employees, the inventions they create and who owns the result. In this book, oriented to the business executive and written in straightforward language we guide the reader through the detail and procedures relating to employee inventions, explaining under what circumstances a person is a relevant employee so that their inventions become those of their employers. The law is specified in the Patents Act 1977 but there are circumstances where the factual position as to who is an employee, and whether their invention belongs to an employer is not so clear cut. The commentary takes the reader through a series of cases and a course of commentary to explain this area of law. There has also been recent judicial attention as to the level of compensation which ought to be paid to employees for inventions that benefit their employer. We explain the concept of making a contribution which is of outstanding benefit to the employer, and in what circumstances the employer's benefits deriving from the invention, the patent for it or both can then require a fair share to be paid to the employee. What was a little known part of patent law has been brought to the fore by this book and is given the prominence and explanation that it deserves. ABOUT THE AUTHORS James Tumbridge is a barrister and an Intellectual Property Litigation partner at Venner Shipley, a European Intellectual Property firm. James has been a litigator for 20 years, and has extensive experience in commercial litigation, intellectual property and alternative dispute resolution. He has a uniquely international experience having worked and appeared in courts in the USA, Canada, the UK and British Overseas territories. He is the author of 'Tumbridge's Guide to Legal Qualification: The Common Law World', and a co-author of 'Drafting Patents for Litigation and Licensing'; and co-author of 'Privilege and Professional Confidences: An International Review'. Ashley Roughton is a practicing barrister and has been in practice in technology based areas of law, principally Intellectual Property law and competition for over 25 years. He is also a teaching member of the department of Law at Queen Mary, University of London. Ashley is a co-author of the competition annex of the CIPA guide and also writes a number of chapters for both 'The Modern Law of Trade Marks' and 'The Modern Law of Patents' (of which he is chief editor). CONTENTS 1.Introduction 2.General Summary 3. The Relationship Between Employer and Employee and the Notion of a Worker 4. Employee Inventions Arising Under the Patents Act 1977 and the European Patents Convention 5. Employee Inventions Arising in Equity 6. Employee Inventions and Assignments 7. Entitlement 8. The Employee as the Proprietor and the Duty to Account 9. The Employer as the Proprietor and the Obligation to Compensate

Committee Serial No. 15. Includes "Federal Employee Invention Rights -- Time to Legislate," by Marcus B. Finnegan and Richard W. Pogue, Michigan Law Review, May 1957 (p. 49-112).

In today’s knowledge-based global economy, most inventions are made by employed persons through their employers’ research and development activities. However, methods of establishing rights over an employee’s intellectual property assets are relatively uncertain in the absence of international solutions. Given that increasingly more businesses establish entities in different countries and more employees co-operate across borders, it becomes essential for companies to be able to establish the conditions under which ownership subsists in intellectual property created in employment relationships in various countries. This comparative law publication describes and analyses employers’ acquisition of employees’ intellectual property rights, first in general and then in depth. This second edition of the book considers thirty-four different jurisdictions worldwide. The book was developed within the framework of the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AIPPI), a non-affiliated, non-profit organization dedicated to improving and promoting the protection of intellectual property at both national and international levels. Among the issues and topics covered by the forty-nine distinguished contributors are the following: • different approaches in different law systems; • choice of law for contracts; • harmonizing international jurisdiction rules; • conditions for recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments; • employees’ rights in copyright, semiconductor chips, inventions, designs, plant varieties and utility models on a country-by-country basis; • employee remuneration right; • parties’ duty to inform; and • instances for disputes. With its wealth of information on an increasingly important subject for practitioners in every jurisdiction, this book is sure to be put to constant use by corporate lawyers and in-house counsel everywhere. It is also exceptionally valuable as a thorough resource for academics and researchers interested in the international harmonization of intellectual property law.

This comprehensive Research Handbook explores the rights of employers and employees with regard to intellectual property (IP) created within the framework of the employment relationship. Investigating the development of employee IP from a comparative perspective, it contextualises issues in the light of theoretical approaches in both IP law and labour law.