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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!"
My thoughts are that the Anonymous Coward link shouldn't have an email address if Bill Keegan wants to remain anonymous!
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.
you luck bastard. all i got was a pile of stock options.
"My employer has recently filed a patent application for something I invented."
And yet you still left out something very important - you invented it on company time (or even used a little bit of company time) and you've been on the payroll since before concieved of the invention, and , in fact, you were employed in order to benefit the company - including anything you invent while working for the company.
You have been paid for, are being paid for, and will likely continue to be paid for the invention - it's called a salary or paycheck.
I'm sorry if you didn't understand the terms of your employment.
Besides, you can get the answer to your question from Google, which will show you that it's a fairly commonly asked question
As far as what is typical in the industry - typically the inventor gets nothing but name recognition. If the invention makes the company a million, they tend to treat you better, but it still shows as zip on your paycheck (except your raises may be slightly higher than usual for awhile)
You might be able to work something out if you are a contractor and can show that you developed the invention for general use in your contracting business, and not for this specific client, but then you get to be the cost bearer of obtaining the patent, and likely (as with the vast majority of inventions) you will never recoup those costs.
It's better to put the invention down on your resume, and work it from the angle of, "I can do good things for your company" rather than trying to say with your current employer, "Hey, where's my piece of the pie?". Likely your piece of the pie will be somewhere outside the office very shortly thereafter.
-Adam
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.
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.
"He wrested the world's whereabouts from the heavens And locked the secret in a pocketwatch." - Dava Sobel
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.
That's corporate life in the 21st century (and has been for a while). Loyalty is an outdated idea. Companies are showing less and less loyalty to employees, and employees are returning the favor.
As far as I'm concerned, the difference between being a full-time employee and a contractor boils down to compensation. Salaried employees trade a higher hourly rate for a fixed salary and additional non-monetary but quanitifiable benefits. Also, the government treats you differently for tax purposes. Period.
Anything else is above and beyond the call. The company will most likely lay the employee off in a heartbeat if they feel the need, and the employee will jump ship at a moment's notice for better pay or a more interesting job. Companies have forgotten how much more valuable a properly-trained and experienced senior employee can be, and employees have forgotten the less tangible benefits of staying with a firm for an extended period of time.
Like almost everyone else in modern American business, no real attention is being paid to the long-term. Only short-term gains are considered. An employee will bail for a 10% increase in pay, while a company will treat people like a commodity and swap them around and dump them for the slightest reason.
Unfortunately, in this climate, intangibles don't count for much, because you can't depend on loyalty being rewarded with loyalty. The companies are to blame when the concept of downsizing and commoditization of employees because more important than treating people like people. Now the shoe's on the other foot and employees aren't giving loyalty either, because they don't expect they will get it.
Unfortunately, the culture now is very much a mercenary culture, and it is stuck in a vicious circle being fed by things like frequent job changes, outsource overseas, the increasing reliance on temp workers, etc.
So, while the company doesn't _owe_ you anything more than a handshake and maybe a plaque (in addition to your salary), if they are wise, they will cultivate your obvious value, and you, in turn, should reciprocate, building a stronger and more valuable relationship.
In my case, I have at times, not shown as much loyalty as I maybe should have, because I am not a patient person, and am unwilling to suffer through a project of a year or more on the chance that the next one will be something I actually want to do. By the same token, I have been lied to, indirectly at least, and treated very unfairly on more than one occasion. The biggest problem I have had, as a long time (15+ years) expert developer that does not want to go into management, is being put in a situation more appropriate for a junior-level programmer, where I cannot utilize my expertise in a way that provides interest to me nor maximizes the company's benefit of my long years of experience. In my current job, I have literally been told nmy work is too good. If every piece of what I develop is not understandable by every programmer (at a shop that is light-weight on progammer talent), then it shouldn't be done that way. Given the impressive resume that I provide, wiuth its emphasis on improving the status quo, and developing sophisticated tools and solutions, it seems rather dishonest to state that I am a good match for the position, because after almost 6 months, I know I clearly am not. If and when I find alternative work, I will take it immediately, despite the fact that I hate to leave after such a short time, and yet, if the culture of the company (for which software development is of peripheral importance, as evidenced by the quotes "We are a bunch of hacks. This is a garage shop." They do brute-force, copy-and-paste work which would have looked archaic 10 years ago) had been described to me honestly, I would have realized it was a bad match up front. One thing I can be honest about is that I get bored easily and I am neither happy or productive when I am bored. I don't think it's fair to hire someone with 10+ years of C++ experience as a C++ p
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