When innovations are created in the context of an employment relationship, complex legal questions often arise: Who owns the invention – the company or the inventor? What rights and claims does the employee inventor have? What must be taken into account when the employer makes a claim? And what rights and obligations does the employer have?

The German law on employee inventions (ArbnErfG) regulates exactly how to deal with service inventions in the employment relationship. A distinction is made between:

–service inventions – i.e. inventions made in the course of professional activity, and

-free inventions – which have arisen independently of the employment relationship and are outside the interests of the employer.

As an employee, you are obliged to report a service invention immediately in writing. The employer then has the right to claim the invention. In return, the inventor is entitled to appropriate remuneration – depending on the economic benefit, the inventor’s position in the company and the contribution to the development of the invention.

Our law firm supports you in clarifying all questions in connection with employee inventions.