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 alike.1