Former employer patenting my idea.

Nony Muss

Usually the answer is that you have no right to your own thoughts, ideas, or intellectual property while working with the employer based on the hiring agreement you signed when first getting hired. If when you were hired, you changed the employment agreement to state that you retain full license of your own ideas and grant the employer a license to use your ideas while employed, then you will have standing. However, you will most likely likely need to pursue the ex-employer in litigation and injunction (to keep them from selling the product for profit) and if they are a large company, this might be considered a "cost of business". I have had this exact particular situation happen to me. I filed for a patent twice within the employer patent wizard as a disclosure, and both times they denied the patent request. I was then laid off from the employer. While working for a vendor supporting the ex-employer, I found out that my idea was patented by another employee and also partnered with Intel (which was also something I suggested since they would be needed to implement the patent properly in the PC industry during my submission within the company). Insult to injury is that while I worked as a vendor to support my ex-employer, I had to work on implementing the concept I developed with my current employers device to work with the ex-employer. The truth of the matter is that companies "own" your thoughts and you have no right to them. In many cases, if you make an attempt to request to a right of license to your ideas as an exception to the normal employment agreement, you will be denied to work with the potential employer and they will not hire you. Unfortunately, if you are not that 2% of humanity, you really have no rights in society in general. Think about it this way, if 2% of people do not have to work, the other 98% is under contract law that removes and denies their rights to thought, actions, litigation, civil protest, freedom of speech, protection from search and seizure without warrant, etc. by default. I would say that 98% of humanity is not free based on the fact they must work and they can only work if they agree to give up their rights. Non corrupted unions try to mitigate some of this, however, a better practice is simply to be in the position to set the employment agreement the way you like. This is the MOST important document when getting hired and no one is usually in the position to do anything because they usually are in dire need of employment so they willingly give up all their rights. That is the way things work in this day and age. If you are lucky enough to have enough patents under your belt, then you might be able to negotiate and get some sort of agreement with an employer before getting hired. You can attempt to re-negotiate your agreement, but I have never seen this work. Talk with a patent lawyer and you will get a better understanding of what you can and cannot do. Goodluck.