Comments on: The Importance of Employment Agreements http://inventivestep.net/2012/07/10/the-importance-of-employment-agreements/ A blog dedicated to a discussion of patent law issues and strategies Fri, 17 May 2013 13:21:08 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Joseph Gross http://inventivestep.net/2012/07/10/the-importance-of-employment-agreements/#comment-15518 Wed, 18 Jul 2012 20:14:00 +0000 http://inventivestep.net/?p=2930#comment-15518 One lesson for the inventor ready to start a new job: it is probably best to file a patent application directed to your invention, at the very least a provisional patent application, prior to signing the employment contract. That way the employee inventor can reference a serial number on the employment agreement to unambiguously single out the prior invention. Also, filing the patent application prior to employment would probably constitute proof of prior invention, even in the absence of referencing the application on the employment agreement.

It might not otherwise be in the best interests of the employee to provide the “sufficient detail” to the employer required to establish prior invention, especially under the first-to-file regime.

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