Highest court rules on employee invention
The court held that an employer can be liable for damages if an employee cannot register his invention as a patent or utility model in a country because the employer has used (but not registered) the invention there. This obligation is based on an employer’s general duty to act in the interest of its employees, including former employees.
So, basically, an employee (or ex employee) can sue their employer if the employer does not act in the best interests of an employee by failing to patent his/her invention.
Hmm, interesting.
Oh, forgot to mention. This is in Germany not the UK. In the UK the employer sues the employee if the employee patents his/her invention (see previous post)!
Bit different huh?
As different as our patent filing rates? In 2004 the filing rates were:
German patents = 22,044
UK patents = 4,791
And as different as our trade balances? In 2004 the trade balances (in dollars) were:
German trade surplus = $193bn
UK trade deficit = -$113bn
Sources: IPGeeK, The European Patent Office (PDF file) and the OECD (XL file)
posted by Deep Thunk @ 14:34
2 Comments:
Just a point about the filing rates.
The numbers you are quoting are based on European applications only, and as the EPO is based in Munich it is really not surprising to find that Germany is chosen more frequently as an entry point for a European application than anywhere else.
You might find the figures from WIPO interesting, which shows number of granted patents per country (although recent UK PCT data is missing) - link:
http://www.wipo.int/ipstats/en/statistics/patents/source/patents_granted_1985_2005_table.csv
And I'm not sure what the trade balance comment has to do with anything. What about the US - the highest number of patents but also the highest trade deficit according to your link at OECD!
BV
You are right, I DO find the WIPO figures interesting; I find them interesting due to the fact that, as you say, the UK figures are missing.
Funny that, eh?
PS your USA argument is wrong (I’ll tell you why later – if I can be bothered).
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