When you hire either as an independent contractor or an employee to design or engineer your product, you can end up not having any invention rights. When you share your invention with your friends and family, you risk reducing the value of your invention rights. The core issue is ownership. Who owns the invention or patent when you work with others? Several common ownership … [Read more...]
Independent Contractor Invention Assignment
Independent contractors who invent owns inventions rights unless it is assigned to a hiring company by way of an invention assignment.
Patent Assignments for Independent Contractors
Patent rights initially vest with the person that conceives of the invention. For example, if a company hires an independent contractors, patent rights initially vest with the independent contractor. If the company hiring the independent contractor wants to exploit the invention, the company must acquire the patent rights from the independent contractor through an … [Read more...]