Benjamin Franklin is credited with coining the axiom that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Allegedly, Franklin actually made the statement in connection with fire safety, which was an avocation for him. Today, the axiom applies perfectly to corporate efforts to manage intellectual property (IP) issues. Many companies rely on old proprietary rights forms or use generic forms collected by the human resource department (HR) with little thought given to downstream consequences.
This article advocates for having in-house or retained counsel make periodic reviews of corporate employment agreements and for having counsel involved in any new hire where there is strong likelihood that the position will lead to the creation of IP. Furthermore, interviewing a potential new hire with prior IP experience for a position that is expected to generate IP should receive special attention in order to avoid conflicts with a prior employer and any prior agreement concerning IP.
The IP provisions in employment agreements frequently include a holdover or surviving provision that obligates the departing employee to assign post-employment inventions that have a tangential relationship to the employer's business back to the employer. These provisions present several problems.
For the new employer, this information should be gathered before hiring the potential employee in order to evaluate the possibility of a conflict with a prior employer and determine if a prior agreement creates any limitation on the potential employer's ability to engage in the work of the proposed position. In requesting this information, it is important to have the potential employee identify all prior inventions, whether or not patented and/or assigned to another company or previous employer. If the individual is hired, this information should be documented in the new employment agreement.
For the prior employer, the issue turns on whether the provision surviving the prior employment is reasonable and enforceable. Many jurisdictions view a surviving assignment provision as a post-employment restriction and analyze them in a manner similar to the approach taken with non-compete agreements. Namely, courts consider whether the time and scope of the agreement provisions are reasonable and whether the provisions unduly hinder the employee's ability to work and use acquired skills.
The above caution is something that a new employer should keep in mind when evaluating a potential employee's prior agreement. Note how the risk is allocated based on the reasonableness of the provision, and a new employer's possible defense in hiring the employee. If the provision appears to be reasonable on its face, could enforcement of the provision hinder the employee in the proposed position? If the provision does not seem reasonable, is the potential hire important enough that the new employer is willing to litigate the issue?
Having cleared the pre-employment hurdles, an employment agreement should consider and specifically address anticipated IP-related issues. In the words of Franklin, a solid agreement is the recommended "ounce of prevention."
Consider the case of Aetna-Standard Engineering v. Rowland, 493 A.2d 1375 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1985). In that case, a designer was hired and was subsequently tasked with improving a given machine and, along with his supervisor, was successful. The parties did not have any agreement regarding ownership or assignment of the invention in place. The employer attempted to force the employee to assign the patent, but was rejected by a lower court and affirmed on appeal.
In Aetna-Standard, the inventor had training and engineering experience when he was hired, but he maintained that he had no contract or obligation, written or oral, requiring assignment of any invention to Aetna. He refused to assign his invention. When he was given a specific task that resulted in the invention for which a patent was filed, he received no additional compensation and was only instructed to develop equipment for an Aetna project contract with a third party. Ultimately, in the absence of an agreement, Rowland did not have to assign the patent to Aetna and retained his co-inventor rights. However, since Rowland's supervisor was a co-inventor who had assigned his interest to Aetna, Aetna was at least a co-owner of the patent with Rowland and each was free to use the patent without any obligation to the other. Aetna ultimately received an expensive "pound of cure."
The language of an IP assignment provision included with an employment agreement is critical. Assignment provisions that have express, nonconditional language are likely to be enforced. Future, contingent provisions are problematic. Accordingly, there is a significant difference between " I will assign" and invention, and " I do hereby assign" the invention.
This was demonstrated in the case of
In contrast, as noted in Stanford University v. Roche Molecular Systems,
Thus, IP agreement language that creates a promise to assign future IP does not readily resolve the ownership issue. In
The primary takeaways for employers are as follows: when hiring someone that might generate IP, be sure to research all prior agreements and work experience that could impact the potential employee's duty and/or ability to assign inventions to either the prior employer or potential new employer; and make sure that company employment agreements include language that presently assigns IP by operation of law; and, even if corporate documents have acceptable present assignment language, obtain separate signed assignment agreements, prepared for recordation, for each invention. Separate assignment documents are straight forward and can be recorded with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office without concern for private company information that might be in an employment agreement.
As the cited cases clearly demonstrate, the attention paid to these issues ahead of time is more than " an ounce of prevention."
Reprinted with permission from the March 30, 2018 issue of The Legal Intelligencer ©2020 ALM Media Properties, LLC. Further duplication without permission is prohibited. All rights reserved.
