Employee Patent Compensations?

Anonymous Coward asks: "My employer has recently filed a patent application for something I invented. As compensation I am being given the statutory $1 for the assignment and a shiny brass plaque if the patent(s) is awarded. Is this typical for North American companies? I did sign a no compensation and automatic assignment type employment contract and while I was willing to accept that technically, I'm owed nothing, this strikes me as cheap, greedy, and backward thinking on my employers part. I've Google'd and read and this action seems archaic, am I wrong and just full of myself? Your thoughts please!"

Comments

not exactly standard...

[jrstewart]

I think the usual practice in america is more like a couple thousand dollars and a shiny brass plaque.

I wouldn't lose sleep over the bonus. Instead, remember to mention your patent at your next performance review. Even if you don't get a bonus from it directly it may be a useful bargaining chip for future compensation.

Standard Practice

[the eric conspiracy]

It's a standard part of US employment law that if you are indeed an employee rather than an independent contractor that any intellecual property that you generate does in fact belong lock stock and barrel to your employer. They don't even owe you the shiny dollar.

Some companies are more generous, offering a few shares of stock or whatever.

I know in Europe you have a somewhat better situation, especially if the invention is worth a LOT of money in the long run, but how far that goes I don't know.

I never thought it was a big deal in my job - generating these things was what I was being paid for, and in reality very few patents ever turn out to be commercially valuable anyway.

Re:Motivations

[Kanagawa]

Because its good for business?

They should give more than the minimum to give this very valuable employee solid motivation to continue his fine work. Nikola Tesla came to the U.S. to work for Edison, who made life unpleasant by failing to reward Tesla for his excellent work. Tesla eventually left and invented A/C dynamos for Westinghouse, which helped him defeat Edison in the electricty market. Eventually making the Westinghouse corporation became so powerful J.P. Morgan and G.E. eventually gave up competing (and licensed the patents from Westinghouse).

Sadly, Edison was too arrogant to see the value in Tesla's future efforts and, rather than reaping the benefits of a lifetime's creative inventions and a potentially brilliant partnership, he was massively defeated in the electrical market. There's actually a great new book out called Empires of Light, in case you want to learn from history by reading about it.

Anyway, filing a patent is normally worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity to a corporation. Even, frankly, if the patent isn't really worth enforcing or developing, it still increases the value of the corporation. An employee who is creative enough to continue developing patents is an employee I'd be interested in keeping!

As a technologist and a manager, I'm often saddened at the short-sightedness of my peers. These kinds of decisions are legal. But, they're cultural suicide for a corporation. Imagine the bright young engineer with several good ideas who hears this guy come back to his cube and tell this story? Why would he let out a peep about his own patentable ideas in that office? If he holds on to them, he can negotiate better terms when he changes jobs. Which he may begin looking to do very shortly.