Safeguard your Invention Rights

March 25, 2009
Intellectual Property News and Interesting Facts

If, on your own initiative and with all your own resources, you have created something new, inventive, and useful, you generally are entitled to own all the rights to your invention.

If, however, you developed your breakthrough product under your employer’s orders and with the company’s tools, the invention rights belong to the company.

In order to meet the legal requirements for “invention,” your brand new miracle device must satisfy all three standards—new, inventive, and useful. The test for “inventiveness” may seem vague, subjective, and conjectural.

According to the law, if a “person skilled in the art” immediately would recognize your invention as obvious—something anyone in your trade or craft might arrange for everyday use—you fail the inventiveness test.

If, on the other hand, any among your professional peers would acknowledge your invention as ingenious, a genuine innovation or breakthrough, you have satisfied the standards for invention rights.