Ask HN: Reward for Patents After Leaving the Company? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Reward for Patents After Leaving the Company?

#11

Post by wsr » Tue, Jul 11, 2017, 12:17 PM UTC

lucozade wrote: post #10

wsr wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the long reply patio11. I can see where you are coming from, and I wouldn't be surprised if the same argument is used by the company. If that is the case. O well, I wish them well but I would never be this naive again. There is just one point that you might have missed. The patent work doesn't stop the moment you finish filing. In fact, almost all valuable patents will be challenged in court, which can cos…

> the company would have to hire back the original inventors to defend them in court What makes you say that? I'm genuinely curious. I'm the named inventor on a few of patents for a previous employer that were all granted after I left. It never occurred to me that they would continue to need my services (nor have they). BTW have you asked your previous employer about the situation? My guess is that @smoyer's situatio…

I have friends who have gone through this experience. I was pretty surprised too that the company was willing to pay so much to defend their patents. Granted... my friend's rate was fairly reasonable... I think between $500-$1000/hour in probably the early 2000s.

It really depends on the patent in the end of the day. If a company can potentially lose tens or hundreds of millions over a lost lawsuit, spending a million on legal defense would be very reasonable.

I have not talked to my employer about this. I wanted to get some collective wisdom from the HN community before approaching them. But yeah, I'll definitely give it a shot. It doesn't hurt to ask.

Re: Ask HN: Reward for Patents After Leaving the Company?

#12

Post by madcaptenor » Tue, Jul 11, 2017, 2:15 PM UTC

wsr wrote: post #3

madcaptenor wrote: post #2

That's up to your company's policy. My company has a similar policy with a two-stage award, and you're not entitled to the award for approval if it's approved after you leave. Do you have any former colleagues/friends at the company who could get you a copy of the policy?

Good point! I'll check to see if any of my friends can get me a copy of the patent policy. I wonder how legal it is in the state of California to bar the people from getting their reward simply because they are no longer with the company. Patent approval has nothing to do with the employment status. This seems a bit unfair to be honest. Further, they specifically asked me for help AFTER I left the company. I agreed t…

Out of curiosity, I checked our policy. The people who can get monetary awards at my company are:

- active employees, and

- retired employees who retire with eligibility for retiree health benefits (my understanding is that this is, approximately, people who worked for the company for 20 years or more), if they provide requested assistance to the company to get the patent issued after their retirement.

So at my company, if you just left without having been here for a long time, they wouldn't give you the money after you left. (This is what I thought, and good to know in my case since I have a few patents in the pipeline myself...)

Furthermore, there is no mention that "this is different in California". We employ people all over the country including in California, and a lot of our policies do call out California specifically because it does have different laws, so I suspect there's nothing special about California here. (I am not a lawyer.)

Re: Ask HN: Reward for Patents After Leaving the Company?

#13

Post by wsr » Tue, Jul 11, 2017, 2:32 PM UTC

madcaptenor wrote: post #12

wsr wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point! I'll check to see if any of my friends can get me a copy of the patent policy. I wonder how legal it is in the state of California to bar the people from getting their reward simply because they are no longer with the company. Patent approval has nothing to do with the employment status. This seems a bit unfair to be honest. Further, they specifically asked me for help AFTER I left the company. I agreed t…

Out of curiosity, I checked our policy. The people who can get monetary awards at my company are: - active employees, and - retired employees who retire with eligibility for retiree health benefits (my understanding is that this is, approximately, people who worked for the company for 20 years or more), if they provide requested assistance to the company to get the patent issued after their retirement. So at my compa…

Thanks for sharing madcaptenor! Very interesting to know this!