Employee Patent Compensations?

Posted by Cliff on Monday October 27, 2003 @01:25PM from the if-you-invent-do-it-on-your-own-time dept.

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!"

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IBM's policy by random735 · 2003-10-27 15:38 · Score: 3, Interesting

IBM's invention policy is:
first patent: $1500 when it's filed, another $500 if the patent is awarded
any patents after that: $750, +$500 if patent awarded.

Every 4 patents you hit a "plateau" and get a bonus $1250 or so on top of everything else.

From the posts in this forum, sounds like that's actually a pretty nice system.