Harringay online

Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Ok imagine there was an exciting idea at work which required a visual tool to help implement it and at home, in your own time you worked on the tool and brought it into work. Your boss loves it and your company decides to employ the tool for the work they do. Now imagine you realise that that tool stands up brilliantly on its own and has loads of uses and could be great asset for many organisations

Do you ...

1) Suggest your company trade marks it and hope for a pay rise
2) Quickly trade mark it and then negotiate from a strong position further down the road, should 'ownership' becomes disputed
3) Try to negotiate a shared use agreement in an upfront way before doing anything

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I'm no expert but I think that If your idea is not patented then there is nothing to stop someone else doing so and then as the patent holder potentially stopping you using it in the future.

If you patent something and then choose to share it or give it away then you can then do so.

I would get advice from the UK Patent Office, which is now known as the 'UK Intellectual Property Office', https://www.gov.uk/intellectual-property-an-overview (beware many sites which look as if they are official but are private companies using similar wording to the official site in order to garner business).

I'd start by checking my contract. Depending to some extent on your job, any employer worth their salt is likely to have this type of situation covered.
Yep good idea. But I did devise it at home. The last visual tool that this new one supersedes was trademarked and became an industry standard licensed by a PR company to many other organisations in the UK including ours.

Also I promised verbally to let my company use it as long as I received a credit for it. They happily agreed. I'm happy for them to continue using it forever. They will probably only ever use it in the Uk. I wonder whether i should try to negotiate to own the international rights, In view of taking it overseas.

Or try to see if I can negotiate a shared rights principle ?

This is all quite new to me so not sure what's they wisest way of trying to play it. They will be open to suggestions and I am close to the chief exec and know the board will be friendly to suggestions, just not sure what to ask for really,

I devised this four days ago, so its hot off the press, without even the design actually made properly yet. It will be finished tomorrow through and ready to trademark.

I'm no expert either but I think you are confused about the term " trademark ". A trademark is just a name under which something from a particular manufacturer is sold. Car tyres are pretty much the same in basic design but Michelin and Pirelli are trademarks which protect those manufacturers against other companies passing off their products as those benefitting, for example, from the Pirelli or Michelin advertising budgets.

If you want to stop other companies copying and marketing your idea you should patent it. But. as Hugh says, the contract of employment of any company I have worked for stipulated that they had the intellectual rights to anything I thought up while in their employ, whether actually in the workplace or at home. 

I would imagine that John is right. A lot of the products from companies like Apple were invented by an individual but the company owns the patents, not the employee who invented them.
It's a 2d design on paper so a trademark would secure it as was the method the previous 'tool' was protected. You're probably right that contractually I might not be in a strong position, however there is room for negotiation here I think. I guess the answer is 'c' really. I'll draw up the copyright plans and ask to sit down with the chief or deputy exec and talk it through with them.

You'll find that some contracts cover IP you create at home if it's work related. Check.

Yeah will do, thanks.

It depends on your agreement with your employer. Most employers that hire creative, developers scientists, engineers... etc, take ownership of any patents of intellectual property created by employees, if the work was done on behalf of the company. The author will generally get her/his name on the patent, but profits from it belong to the employer. That's been my experience. If you want to look it up, it's usually called: work for hire, or corporate ownership.

I think the situation might be that my contract does cover IP, not had time to check but at the same time I think my firm would very open to suggestions as a thank you for creating this new tool and other bits and bobs, I'm just not sure what to try to ask for. I think they would be very open to the idea of sharing the rights overseas because they just would never use it overseas. I also think they would be open to the idea of sharing the rights to licence to Industries that don't compete with my firm. Just not sure what angle to try for.

Start an anonymous, open source version. 

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