I was recently laid-off from a company that I spent a number of years working for. During the course of my employment I developed a product which management and I were subsequently in the process of developing a patent for. I was responsible for writing up the patent description, but never got around to it. The layoff was completely unexpected, so this was in no way an intentional situation on my part.
So the question I now have is; should I hurry up and seek a patent for this product on my own? I realize that everything I developed on company time belongs to my employer - including the product that this patent is inspired by - but what about the patent itself, especially since the patent application wasn't even started on company time?
The circumstances of the layoff may be useful to this discussion, so I'll describe them here. Management insists that it wasn't personal since an Involuntary Reduction in Force was in effect. However, I believe that it was indeed personal for several reasons. The first is that I wasn't the only person eligible for the IRIF - in fact, several of the other eligible people had poorer track records than mine. The second is that I have never received a mark on my employee record despite the fact that management and I disagreed constantly on just about everything. I considered the disagreements to be professional, while I suspect that the same may not have been true from the other point-of-view. Third, I have also received news that the day after the layoff my manager was seen dismantling several systems that I worked on (which, BTW, we were never even in disagreement over as far as I know).
My interpretation of this situation is that the message I should take away from the layoff is that management no longer had any interest in continuing ANY of my work. To test this theory, I sent an e-mail to my (former boss)'s boss laying out the work that I had in progress and asking him if he had any interest in finding some alternate means to continue any of it. After three days I received no reply so I sent a follow-up e-mail to make sure he received the first one. After a week I still had no reply, so I took that to mean that he genuinely had no interest in continuing ANY of my work. Earlier today I followed up with a third e-mail that politely thanked him for his consideration and which also withdrew my offer of work continuance since I am now following up on several, more attractive leads. The reason I think that this may be important is that if I'm to interpret our parting cirsumstances as a complete lack of interest in the work I was doing, then I feel that I should be entitled to the patent.
I believe that U.S. patent law will back me up if I submit the patent before my former employer has a chance to. A few jobs back I was working on products for the patent office and this was the understanding I got from that experience. But then again, U.S. patent law is widely acknowledged to be broken, so I'd like to get some opinions on whether or not other people think I'm justified, in an ethical sense, in going this route. I am following up separately with a lawyer to find out if labor laws would back me up and also to find out if it would be considered a breach of contract.
Thanks, and I look forward to hearing the debate on this one
So the question I now have is; should I hurry up and seek a patent for this product on my own? I realize that everything I developed on company time belongs to my employer - including the product that this patent is inspired by - but what about the patent itself, especially since the patent application wasn't even started on company time?
The circumstances of the layoff may be useful to this discussion, so I'll describe them here. Management insists that it wasn't personal since an Involuntary Reduction in Force was in effect. However, I believe that it was indeed personal for several reasons. The first is that I wasn't the only person eligible for the IRIF - in fact, several of the other eligible people had poorer track records than mine. The second is that I have never received a mark on my employee record despite the fact that management and I disagreed constantly on just about everything. I considered the disagreements to be professional, while I suspect that the same may not have been true from the other point-of-view. Third, I have also received news that the day after the layoff my manager was seen dismantling several systems that I worked on (which, BTW, we were never even in disagreement over as far as I know).
My interpretation of this situation is that the message I should take away from the layoff is that management no longer had any interest in continuing ANY of my work. To test this theory, I sent an e-mail to my (former boss)'s boss laying out the work that I had in progress and asking him if he had any interest in finding some alternate means to continue any of it. After three days I received no reply so I sent a follow-up e-mail to make sure he received the first one. After a week I still had no reply, so I took that to mean that he genuinely had no interest in continuing ANY of my work. Earlier today I followed up with a third e-mail that politely thanked him for his consideration and which also withdrew my offer of work continuance since I am now following up on several, more attractive leads. The reason I think that this may be important is that if I'm to interpret our parting cirsumstances as a complete lack of interest in the work I was doing, then I feel that I should be entitled to the patent.
I believe that U.S. patent law will back me up if I submit the patent before my former employer has a chance to. A few jobs back I was working on products for the patent office and this was the understanding I got from that experience. But then again, U.S. patent law is widely acknowledged to be broken, so I'd like to get some opinions on whether or not other people think I'm justified, in an ethical sense, in going this route. I am following up separately with a lawyer to find out if labor laws would back me up and also to find out if it would be considered a breach of contract.
Thanks, and I look forward to hearing the debate on this one