Employees' Duty To Provide Information On Inventions

If an employee makes an invention as part of the employment relationship, and if the exploitation of the invention falls within the employer's field of work, the employee must inform the employer. In this case, the Maritime and Commercial Court had to decide whether an employee had discharged this duty.

The case concerned an engineer employed at a company developing and manufacturing hearing aids. During his employment, the engineer made an invention in the form of a specific algorithm. The engineer made a technical report describing the invention and also gave a presentation in which the invention was superficially described.

Approximately one year later, the engineer resigned. He then set up a business and applied to patent the algorithm. The former employer also filed a patent application approximately four years later after having been informed of the invention by a co-inventor.