Law on Employee Inventions

According to the German Patent or Utility Model Act, the rights to an invention and thus the right to the patent or utility model application are conferred to the inventor or his legal successor. The right to file the application is not examined ex officio by the German Patent and Trademark Office. However, in the event that an application for a patent or utility model for an invention is filed by an unauthorised third party, said third party is hence acting unlawfully and the actually entitled person may enforce his/her claims by way of lodging an opposition or a vindication suit for restitution of the industrial property rights.

With regard to job-related inventions, i. e. inventions created by an employee during the term of employment (even in his spare time) for his employer, special regulations are required, since the employer, i. e. generally a legal person, is not himself/herself conferred any original rights to the invention but first needs to have said rights transferred to himself/herself by the employee having created the invention. The regulations required to this end are enshrined in the Law on Employee Inventions for the territory of Germany.