Who Owns What Your Engineer Thought Of: Invention Assignment, Shop Rights, and Inventor Compensation
By Casey Scott McKay ·
Most companies believe their employees' inventions belong to them, and most are relying on a document that was signed once, filed nowhere, and drafted from a template. This article explains why the default rule is the opposite of what employers assume, and how the employed-to-invent doctrine and shop rights fill only part of the gap. It covers the drafting distinction between a promise to assign and a present assignment, and the litigation that turned on a single verb tense. It works through the state statutes that carve inventions out of assignment agreements, the holdover clauses that reach past the employment, and the prior inventions schedule nobody completes. It then addresses inventor compensation regimes outside the United States, where employees have statutory claims to remuneration that no contract can waive. It closes with the practical failures that surface in diligence.
IP and Technology > Patent Counseling Transactions | Article | Published 15 July 2024 - Updated 6 July 2025 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us
The default rule is the one nobody expects
Ask a founder who owns the inventions their engineers make and the answer is immediate and confident: the company does. That is what employment means. That is what the paperwork says. That is what everybody knows.
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