Employee Invention Rights in the Twenty-First Century
Labor Law Journal › Vol. 56 Nbr. 1, April 2005
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Summary
American employers may exercise unlimited powers to obtain the invention rights of employees by requiring them to sign pre-employment contracts assigning all rights to the employer. Legislative remedies protecting employed inventors have been proposed, but have been unsuccessful. Congressional attempts to enact a federal statute regulating employee inventor rights have remained dormant since 1984. Presently, the only option for employed inventors is judicial relief which has settled into a century and a half-old quagmire of employer oriented decisions. Other industrialized nations, most notably Germany and Japan, have enacted statutes mandating employee compensation. To stimulate invention and to compete with allied technical advances, Germany enacted a 1942 statute requiring reasonable remuneration to employed inventors. A Japanese statute has provided employees with the right to compensation since 1959. Historically, awards had been minimal and rarely challenged by employees due to culture and custom. The current American law is examined and a solution proposed for US employee inventors.
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Extract
Employee Invention Rights in the Twenty-First Century
American employers may exercise unimited powers to obtain the invention rights of employees by requiring them to sign pre-employment contracts assigning all rights to the employer. Legislative remedies protecting employed inventors have been proposed, but have been unsuccessful. Congressional attempts to enact a federal statute regulating employee inventor rights have remained dormant since 1984. Presently, the only option for employed inventors is judicial relief which has settled into a century and a half-old quagmire of employer oriented decisions.
Other industrialized nations, most notably Germany and Japan, have enacted statutes mandating employee compensation. To stimulate invention and to compete with al lied technical advances, Germany enacted a 1942 statute requiring reasonable remuneration to employed inventors. A Library of Congress 1983 study revealed that the German statute functioned well and was enthusiastically supported by employers and employees alik...See the full content of this document
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