Invention Assignment Agreements – How to Avoid Pitfalls
An employee invention assignment agreement is a crucial tool for protecting intellectual property, but the laws governing them contain traps for the unwary, warns Jeffrey A. Simmons in Foley & Lardner’s Labor & Employment Law Perspectives.
“If the agreement is too narrow or ambiguous, it may allow inventions to slip away. Further, if the agreement fails to include certain provisions, it may be invalid in certain states,” he explains.
Patentable inventions and copyrightable works are the most significant forms of employee-created intellectual property, but the default rules for those creations are polar opposites, Simmons writes.
