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| The Hunter ... |
Not everyone in the world can boast that they are the Hunter Simpson Professor of Tech Law, not even Seattle philanthropist
W. Hunter Simpson himself since, sadly, he died in 2006. However, his memory is perpetuated by the work of the professor who bears his name -- the IPKat's friend
Toshiko Takenaka of
CASRIP, an integral part of the Technology & Art Group, University of Washington School of Law. Toshiko, who is currently researching into employee invention laws, notes that the UK's
Patents Act 1977, section 40, provides that an employee is entitled to receive compensation from his employer in the case of an invention made in the course of employment, or which falls outside the scope of his employment duties but is assigned or exclusively licensed to the employer, where the invention turns out to have been a particularly valuable one. However, under section 40(3), this does not apply
" ... to the invention of an employee where a relevant collective agreement provides for the payment of compensation in respect of inventions of the same description as that invention to employees of the same description as that employee. ..."
By section 40(6) of the same Act
"“relevant collective agreement” means a collective agreement within the meaning of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, made by or on behalf of a trade union to which the employee belongs, and by the employer or an employers' association to which the employer belongs which is in force at the time of the making of the invention".
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Only in it for
the d'oh ...? |
Toshiko is desperately keen to see some collective agreements that provide for the payment of compensation by employers to employee inventors. IPKat team blogger Jeremy has never, in all his many years, seen one -- and he would not be at all surprised if no such collective agreements were ever concluded, given the antipathy or suspicion which many trade unions had in the previous century towards such schemes. In the view of many contemporary trades unionists of that time, the rewarding of the inventor alone, for the success of an invention which in many cases was as much the result of the efforts and collaboration of non-inventive employees too, was not only an inequitable division of the fruits of invention but could have a divisive effect within the workplace.
If any readers have ever come across a collective agreement of the kind mentioned here, can they please let us all know?
People with whom W. Hunter Simpson should not be confused:
