Invention Agreements – Patent Incentives

(December 9, 2009) Employed inventors are happier with jobs in which they are rewarded for their inventions and are unsatisfied with jobs in which they feel they receive only token recognition. Yet industry has a number of arguments against tying compensation to the commercial worth of a patent. Consider, for example, the employer's dilemma. If the only ones who are rewarded are the ones whose names are on the patent application, there may be claims that the work was a group effort.

If it later comes out that the invention was not a group effort, the patent may be found invalid. On the other hand, many people are still unrecognized or unrewarded by the patent system for their own important work—in software development and pure research, to name two areas.