I have a moral, or ethical question (sorry, no Amy content)

alfadriver wrote:

DrBoost wrote: And to answer the obvious question, I don't know if this product would make me enough money where leaving my current position wouldn't be an issue.

HiTempguy- Boost does say he will not likely quit his job. Even still- if it was clear that the idea was generated on the job, it's highly unlikely that they would let file for the patent after quitting. This was an idea that makes his current job or process or product better as it was observed as on the job work. Bear in mind, the area we live is a very patent obsessed area- there are 6 patent offices located around the US- one of them is in Detroit. If it's work related at all, the company will want to keep it- even if you quit. BTW, we have an example of doing a non-industry related patent- Angry's idea was completely not automotive related, and he was able to get that done outside of the industry. I do know he worked in the industry for quite a long time, and I think when he and his friend came up with the idea- it was while he was working. So we've had an example of a non-related patent getting done and going off on their own.

Ah, I seem to have misread.

Also, very interesting. I also work in a patent heavy industry, but usually we're talking hundreds of thousands, or a couple million worth of dollars if you can get it to market, not 100's of millions. Lawyers can hoover up a couple mil pretty quick!

I get to invent anything I want at work. My name is on the patent, I get to publish it in peer review if I like (once protected), I can claim I invented it, but it's owned by my company, as well it should. If it's industry related, it would be very hard to claim I thought of it on my own with no input/resources from the company.

This type of corporate E36 M3 sure is a good way to stifle innovation...

Im sorry, but a handshake and my name on the patent + a plaque doesn't incentivize me.

fritzsch wrote: This type of corporate E36 M3 sure is a good way to stifle innovation... Im sorry, but a handshake and my name on the patent + a plaque doesn't incentivize me.

Exactly!

Still makes good resume fodder if you are not happy come annual review time.

jstand wrote: Does it compete with your employers products?

No. It compliments one of our products directly, it would go hand-in-hand with it and could benefit others. It would actually potentially increase sales of one product in particular.

jstand wrote: Is the knowledge of the need that came from working for your employer, or the idea for the solution?

The knowledge of the need came from my experience there. The idea was just something I brain stormed.

jstand wrote: How did you get that knowledge? Was it from customer feedback, observations of the day to day operations, or other?

I came to understand the problem from feedback from customers. The solution was all me.

jstand wrote: It may be worth gathering up your HR documents, your supporting docs for your idea, and spending some money for an hour or two of an attorneys time. That way you can be reasonably confident of patent ownership and any contract implications before moving forward.

I think that's the next step. Tomorrow I'll review my contract and the employee handbook.

I hope it's not owned by the company. Like fritzsch said, that would totally kill any incentive I have to develop it. This product would have an insane ROI for the end-user. I'm not talking months or weeks, but hours of use!

Thanks for the input all!

fritzsch wrote: This type of corporate E36 M3 sure is a good way to stifle innovation... Im sorry, but a handshake and my name on the patent + a plaque doesn't incentivize me.

Most get money, too.

But evidence says that it does not stifle innovation. I think Ford applies for thousands of patents annually, and none of people on them own them.

fritzsch wrote: This type of corporate E36 M3 sure is a good way to stifle innovation... Im sorry, but a handshake and my name on the patent + a plaque doesn't incentivize me.

Nobody's stopping you from innovating.

You are welcome to leave the company and innovate to your little heart's content.

Oh, you mean you want the company to underwrite you so you can develop your own thing on their nickel, then stab them in the back? That's a little different.

(Note, I am not proposing this, and I do believe there are better ways to incentivize. I am merely trying to point out to you how extremely biased and selfish your position is, by offering the opposite. Neither is a balanced viewpoint).

I get paid $1 by the company for every patent that I get approved. I have a total of $3 taped to the wall of my office.

Pretty standard clause that if you thought of it during work hours, it belongs to the company. Check out the Bratz doll fiasco to see how this works. The owners of the Barbie brand sued ex-employees saying that their idea for doing a doll was because they had worked at barbie central.

There is some good news for you though...patent litigation tends to go through three levels of appeal. The batting average at the final court of appeal is 50-50 regardless of what the previous two courts have said. Patents are one of the more berkeleyed up institutions going.

That said, plenty of people quit and start their own companies. It is not until you start making lots of money that the patent attorneys will bring the idea of litigation to your ex-employer.

SVreX wrote:

fritzsch wrote: This type of corporate E36 M3 sure is a good way to stifle innovation... Im sorry, but a handshake and my name on the patent + a plaque doesn't incentivize me.

Nobody's stopping you from innovating. You are welcome to leave the company and innovate to your little heart's content. Oh, you mean you want the company to underwrite you so you can develop your own thing on their nickel, then stab them in the back? That's a little different. (Note, I am not proposing this, and I do believe there are better ways to incentivize. I am merely trying to point out to you how extremely biased and selfish your position is, by offering the opposite. Neither is a balanced viewpoint).

I think it depends on your job role. If you are paid as an innovator, then that is your job role and your work is to develop new things and ideas. You signed up for that, and the company benefits on the work it pays you to do. It likely pays a lot of people a lot of money to come up with good new ideas. So it needs to capitalize on the good ideas to continue looking.

However, if you are an 'executor' or otherwise paid to do anything other than innovate (for example, work in sales), then I do think that having a policy where the company just gets to keep your idea does stifle innovation, and probably drives people to think like fritzsch and OP.

mtn wrote: Actually, what you may want to do is form an LLC, and file the patent under that. Probably would provide you with some protection so it doesn't all go to the company.

^.

In reply to DrBoost:

Others have defined the legal component.

Regarding the ethical component, I think it has a lot to do with what your role is.

For example, if your job is loading trucks, and while loading them and doing your job you have an idea that would improve a manufacturing process or marketing capability, then you have developed a new idea outside the realm of what you were being compensated for.

However, if your job is creative input or intellectual property development and you come up with an idea that will expand the creative capacities or intellectual efficiencies, then you have done nothing more than done your job well. Why would you expect additional compensation for something they are already paying you for?

YMMV

In reply to rcutclif:

That's pretty amazing. We were typing at the same moment.

In reply to SVreX:

hah! good stuff.

SVreX wrote: In reply to DrBoost: Others have defined the legal component. Regarding the ethical component, I think it has a lot to do with what your role is. For example, if your job is loading trucks, and while loading them and doing your job you have an idea that would improve a manufacturing process or marketing capability, then you have developed a new idea outside the realm of what you were being compensated for. However, if your job is creative input or intellectual property development and you come up with an idea that will expand the creative capacities or intellectual efficiencies, then you have done nothing more than done your job well. Why would you expect additional compensation for something they are already paying you for? YMMV

My job is not related to innovation. I don't know if I want to tip my hat at this time too much so I'll try to 'splain it in a round about way.
Let's say my job is with a printer company. I install and service printers, or train folks at other companies to install and service the printer if that's what they want to do. I don't engineer printers or parts for them. We have an engineering department for that. I hear from one or two customers that they love our printers, but they just don't hold 11X17 paper very well. I develop an attachment to the printer that will allow the printer to hold 11X17 paper like nobody's business. If my company were to implement this idea, I think they'd sell more printers because the other printers out there don't hold 11X17 paper much better than ours.
My idea is a component that would be an option to our product and enhance it's functionality. It would also save the end user a lot of money and cost very little to implement.

Get your wife to invent it.

Regardless, for what it is worth, if you really think you want to be an entrepreneur, you should learn to read a patent and write a basic patent disclosure with a set of claims. After that, put a bit of your money where your gut is, and invest in a provisional patent. That will get you into the market. 25-50k is going to get spent by the time you get or do not get a useful patent. Say a few thousand a year for worldwide maintenance fees.

As a potential investor, I am more interested in your pipeline to the consumer. Who is going to make it, out of what, for how much once it reaches the buyer, and how do you get to the buyers? Every sale has a cost to cover the expense of finding the buyer, the goal is to have a pipeline that keeps this number very low. I assure you, until you have done this once or twice, you have no idea how the expenses stack up getting a product to a buyer. Nothing, not even an MBA prepares you for this reality.

By the way, if you don't see this as generating enough revenue to quit your day job, I don't see a business plan.

Another question I would ask, assuming that what you speak of is molding a new widget, if you gave the idea to your present employer, would they invest the 50k or so to tool up and make the thing?

NOHOME wrote: Get your wife to invent it.

I've thought about that. The issue is that the company would see right through this and I think it would look pretty crappy and put a target on my back.

NOHOME wrote: Another question I would ask, assuming that what you speak of is molding a new widget, if you gave the idea to your present employer, would they invest the 50k or so to tool up and make the thing?

I am going to start gathering parts in about a month when I have some time freed up. I don't think anything would have to be actually created. I can use something from company A, something from Radio Shack, and something from Company C to create this.
And I know a patent is not cheap. A friend of mine got a patent and I'm trying to help her get it to market (by the way, if anyone is an avid fisherman or woman, let me know. Have I got a product for you!). I was surprised how much it cost her to get a patent!

Here's an honest question- is it a simple development, or an honest, unique, and not thought of, invention?

There's a big difference between developing prior art, no matter how unique it is, and new art.

If it's a simple development on an existing product- there isn't an invention to worry about. It needs something totally new, or a new application of prior art that nobody has thought of.

If I understand your question Alfa, it's a new, unique product. It's used in conjunction with an exitsting product, and when it is, would improve one aspect of it's operation. currently, the product does not have this functionality

Is this product an air freshener that actually works in the men's room? That needs to be developed.

Datsun1500 wrote: So your product only works as long as the other product does not change? That limits the market a good bit.

They'd have to change the way the product works on a fundamental level, almost like disc vs drum brakes, or carburation vs fuel injection to put it in automotive terms.

Datsun1500 wrote: My thinking as an employer would be: you would not have known about the issue if you did not work for me, with my product, and my customers. You have no right to sell my customers your product.

If they had that kind of an attitude, I'd say you don't have the right to this product, that will improve your bottom line and your customer's satisfaction. I'll take my ball, keep maintaining the patent, and go home. Or sell it to the competitor.
Either way, the contract I signed will shed ultimate light on this.

In my experience, it all depends on what you do for the company and what your contract says.

If you are an engineer at Ford, working on electronic systems, and you see a way to improve the voice-guidance system: that belongs to Ford. Even if you work in fuel injection, you are too close and have access to proprietary Ford data.

If you work in the Ford cafeteria, and you think up a way to improve the transmission on the new F-150, you are in a grey area. The company would probably pay you $500 for your idea through an internal program, but you could not own it. Maybe you have been talking to engineers or pulling documents out of the trash. It would be your lawyer against Ford's legal team, and you would lose.

If you worked in the cafeteria and noticed that all auto assembly line workers could use a gizmo to get broccoli out of their teeth, you own it. It is not based on Ford-specific information, is applicable to any manufacturer, and you were not employed to invent teeth-cleaning gizmos, so there is no conflict of interest.

DrBoost wrote: If they had that kind of an attitude, I'd say you don't have the right to this product, that will improve your bottom line and your customer's satisfaction. I'll take my ball, keep maintaining the patent, and go home. Or sell it to the competitor.

Well, that's pretty much a guarantee you will lose your job.

And owning a patent (IF you could actually get it) means nothing if you can't defend it. It's still a legal battle to try to defend a patent, and if you took that position, I'm quite sure your employer would make sure it was a very long legal battle.

If you have a non-compete, this is pretty much exactly what they try to prevent.

I hope I am wrong- good luck. Will be interested to hear more.

Only thing I can add is that I was once considering a franchise. In the franchise agreement was an IP clause that stated if while a franchisee I developed something it belonged to the franchiser, EVEN IF IT WAS NOT RELATED TO THE CORE BUSINESS. The hell with that.

Mitchell wrote: Still makes good resume fodder if you are not happy come annual review time.

Yup... Then you get to call yourself a "subject matter expert" and companies like mine will pay you big 6-figure salaries to go to proposal meetings and run your mouth...