Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior Univ. v. Roche Molecular Systems, Inc.

Labor law: rights in an invention: since 1790, patent law has operated on the premise that rights in an invention belong to the inventor. See, e.g., Gayler v. Wilder, 10 How. 477, 493. In most cases, a patent may be issued only to an applying inventor, or—because an inventor’s interest in his invention is assignable in law by an instrument in writing—an inventor’s assignee. See United States v. Dubilier Condenser Corp., 289 U. S. 178, 187. Absent an agreement to the contrary, an employer does not have rights in an invention “which is the original conception of the employee alone,” id., at 189; an inventor must expressly grant those rights to his employer, see id., at 187; the Court’s construction of the Act is also reflected in the common practice of contractors, who generally obtain assignments from their employees, and of agencies that fund federal contractors, who typically expect those contractors to obtain assignments. With effective assignments, federally funded inventions become “subject inventions” and the Act as a practical matter works pretty much the way Stanford says it should. The only significant difference is that it does so without violence to the basic patent law principle that inventors own their inventions (U.S.S.Ct., 06.06.11, Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior Univ. v. Roche Molecular Systems, Inc., C.J. Roberts).

Droit du travail, droit sur une invention : depuis 1790, le droit des brevets est basé sur le principe qu’une invention appartient à son inventeur. Dans la plupart des cas, un brevet ne peut être octroyé qu’à à un inventeur qui procède au dépôt de son invention. Comme un inventeur peut assigner par écrit ses intérêts dans son invention, le brevet peut être octroyé à l’assignataire. Sauf accord contraire, un employeur ne peut déduire aucun droit d’une invention qui est la conception originale de l’employé et de lui seul. L’employé doit expressément attribuer ses droits sur l’invention à son employeur pour que le transfert s’opère.