Risk Prevention Strategies: Ownership of Employee-Developed Inventions and Intellectual Property
In recent weeks, New York enacted various employment laws that provide additional protections for New York employees. After reviewing the below, which summarizes the new laws in descending order of effective date, employers...more
In July 2022, the Seventh Circuit issued an opinion making it clear that employers must put in place written invention assignment agreements if they want to ensure ownership of employee inventions...more
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion in Helsinn Healthcare S.A. v. Teva Pharms. USA, Inc., clarifying that a commercial sale of an invention more than one year before a patent application is filed...more
Under the “hired to invent” doctrine, employees who develop intellectual property during the course of their employment generally have no ownership rights to such innovations. Earlier this month, the North Carolina Supreme...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is currently considering a petition for en banc rehearing of the “automatic patent assignment” rule announced in the Court’s 1991 decision in FilmTec Corp. v. Allied-Signal,...more
Companies seeking to avoid employment disputes and to secure intellectual property rights to their employees’ inventions should make sure that all employees have signed confidentiality and inventions assignment agreements. ...more