Patent Ownership Considerations For In-House Counsel

• Posted by Geoffrey G. Gussis on June 20th, 2006


• Filed in Intellectual Property

Todd Mayover provides another informative piece on intellectual property issues - this time the focus is patent ownership issues:

"When a company develops new technology, not only is it important that it takes the necessary steps to protect the investment in that technology by obtaining intellectual property rights, it is also critically important that the company implement procedures to secure its ownership rights in the intellectual property as well.

Understandably, it is easy for a company to assume that if its employees or a hired independent contractor develops new technology, that the company automatically obtains ownership rights in the underlying intellectual property because it “paid for” the development of the new technology. However, this is not always case. For one reason, the United States patent system focuses on individual’s rights, and ownership vests initially in the inventors of an invention."

Link: IP Counsel Blog: Patent Ownership Considerations For In-House Counsel.