Should Inventions Be Automatically Owned By Your Employer?

I remember watching the documentary 'Pirates of Silicon Valley' where it was shown how after Steve Wozniak developed the first Apple Computer and went to his employer Hewlett Packard, because he thought they would have the rights to own it.
And it makes me think that had HP loved their design back then, there probably would have been No Apple, as we know it today.

It brings to us a question about protection of Intellectual Property and the Copyright Laws. Most innovations and inventions happen at individual level. I have no idea about the current laws. It would be great if someone among you comes and shares them with us here.

And for everyone else I want to ask - Do you think the company you work for should have the right to own your invention? Please share reasons.

Replies

Saandeep Sreerambatla

As far as I think there should be a thin line between what company owns and what we own.

I am a software tester, so if i invent something out of testing then the company which provided me the opportunity will own it. But If I develop something in development then i think I should own it.
zaveri

your intellectual property is your own, and just like your experience and knowledge, nobody can steal it from you.
Ankita Katdare

Is anyone here aware of the laws in India for the same? Could you please share them with us here?
Jeffrey Arulraj

Some Ceans can help young minds in guiding us how to apply for patent and maintain our own products
Ramani Aswath

I am an odd man out in this. Personally I feel that I own nothing . Even my name was given to me as was my birth. I do not feel any ownership to ideas either.
As far as government jobs are concerned, the condition of employment is that all patents have to be assigned to the employer unconditionally. The patent itself will be in the name of the inventors.
Many private firms add a similar clause as part of employment conditions.
However, the patents are always in the name of the individuals.

In my own case, I have given a written request to my employers that my name should be excluded from all patents.
Abhishek Rawal

Me, I am someone with mixed feelings regarding patents. I basically believe in license like GPL (most probably version2 ) but I don't think that GPL like thing exists in other field apart from software development field.

GPL a.k.a General Public License version2 is like best license in my view. I call it "tit-4-tat license", because a person who develops a software, shares that source code to other developer. The reciever developer will share its software source code to the one from whom he is dealing with. Inshort, "you give me yours & I'll mine".And above all, once the software is GPLed no-one can patent it with its source code. Pretty nice isn't it?
You can share & work together & at the same time your work won't be used by anyone for his/her greed.

"One license to rule 'em all"
Sorry, bit Off-topic.
[Prototype]

I think its like, if you invest your working hours in developing a thing, it'll go to the Company. If you make them in your after office hours, then company don't have any right on your invention.

That's how the contract at nVidia is as per my friend told me.

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Should Inventions Be Automatically Owned By Your Employer?

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