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- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Copyright
- © Industrial Law Society London
- ISSN
- 0305-9332
- eISSN
- 1464-3669
- DOI
- 10.1093/ilj/7.1.30
- Publisher site
- See Article on Publisher Site
Abstract
Employee Inventors and the New Patents Act By Jeremy Phillips * I N few areas of British law can the effect of the imbalance of bargaining power between employer and individual employee have led so clearly to injustice as in 4he distribution of the fruits of inventions made by an employee while in his employer's service. Contractual terms frequently demanded that the employee assign to his employer any rights accruing to him from inventions made by him in any field of endeavour, whether the inventions flowed from his contractual obligations or from leisure-time pursuits; and compensation was almost always ex gratia and often nomi- nal. Even in the absence of express terms the employee could be held to be merely the trustee of his invention for his employer's benefit, and if there were no trust it was still open for the courts to hold that the employee's invention belonged to the employer through the operation of terms implied in the contract of employment If the invention was regarded as belonging to the employer, the inventor could expect no remuneration in excess of his ordinary salary, even if the making of the invention bore only a tenuous relation to the
Journal
Industrial Law Journal – Oxford University Press
Published: Jan 1, 1978