What Is an Invention Assignment Agreement?

Confidential information and invention assignment agreement is a document signed by employees before they start working for a company. It protects the company's personal information and grants the employer rights over inventions an employee creates during employment. Effectively, ownership of the intellectual properties transfers to the employer, and they may use them for profit.

The confidential information clause requires employees to commit not to disclose confidential company information to an outside party during their service and after employment termination. Confidential information may include the following:

On the invention assignment declaration part, employees must commit to disclose to the employer any inventions they create or conceptualize during employment. However, in some states, employers have no right to the inventions employees make during their own time and using personal equipment. 

Examples of states with this exception include:

Similarly, the employer has no rights to any intellectual properties the employee owned before moving to the company. However, the employee must disclose these in the agreement.

Employment confidential information and invention assignment agreement is mainly necessary for roles that require inventing solutions or creating products, including: 

Employees such as accountants and human resource managers may not necessarily need to sign the employment confidential information and invention assignment agreement unless their specific duties involve inventions.

Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations such as inventions, designs, images, names, artistic works, and symbols. Agreements protect IPs and define terms and conditions, authorizing another party who wishes to use them.

There are several types of agreements for protecting a company's intellectual property, including:

The intellectual property law provides guidelines for protecting inventions and other IPs. Common types of intellectual property protection include copyright, patent, trade secrets, and trademarks.

Protects words, phrases, symbols, and names that identify a company's goods/services and distinguish them from competitors. You can submit a trademark application ('use') after or ('intent to use') before using the mark.

Granted to protect technical inventions from being used, made, or sold without the owner's consent. There are three types of patents: utility, plant, and design. You can make a provisional application for a utility and plant patent to establish a filing date, but you must submit a nonprovisional application within 12 months to receive the patent.

Protects original artistic, literary, and other intellectual works such as software code, books, musical compositions, paintings, photographs, etc., giving the owner exclusive rights to modify, distribute, reproduce, and display. The law limits copyright ownership to a given timeline as follows:

Protects a company's secret information that has commercial value. For legal protection of the IP to be valid, you must make reasonable efforts to protect the secret, such as having a trade secret policy. Examples of trade secrets include computer algorithms and soda formulas.

According to statistics, IP-intensive industries account for about 38% of the nation's GDP, yet IP crime costs the economy billions of dollars in losses. For instance, trade secret theft cost the economy $180 billion, with another $18 being lost from pirated U.S. software.

As such, the importance of intellectual property agreements cannot be emphasized enough. Here are some of the main reasons you need an employment confidential information and invention assignment agreement, among other IP agreements.

Employment confidential information and invention assignment agreement is one of the many agreements you can use to protect your company's intellectual property. Others include non-disclosure, licensee, assignment, franchise, software license and maintenance, material transfer, technology consulting, and joint venture agreements. Legal protection can be in the form of trademarks, patents, copyright, and trade secrets. 

Agreements not only clarify ownership and secure the IP, but they give you a competitive advantage. They can also generate earnings for your company through licensing, or you can use the IP rights as collateral to access financing.

If you want to create a confidential information and invention assignment agreement, Lawrina is here to help. Check out this ready-made template and prepare the document in a few simple steps.