Joint Ownership Agreement For An Invention
And if one of the co-owners decides to develop the jointly developed invention and make new versions and improvements, who owns it and who can use it? And what do we need to agree on? It is also important to write down how to behave if one of the co-owners wants to detach himself from the condominium and, for example, sell his share. For these situations, a preemption condition is often added. In other words, if a co-owner wants to sell his share, the other parties have a preventive purchase just before everyone else. The other university transferred the rights of the invention to the researcher with clear conditions, but the other foreign institute refuses to confirm the transfer of rights with sufficient clarity in writing. It believes that its internal IP rules are sufficient to define the situation and requires a 20 percent royalty for everything the researcher will do with the invention. It is difficult to solve these issues on its own. In addition, in the case of international cooperation in particular, it is important to take into account that the legislation on co-ownership can vary greatly from one country to another. Finnish legislation on joint inventions is quite wrong. Our patent law does not contain provisions in this area, so we often have to look at the principles that generally apply to co-ownership. If nothing has been agreed, the starting point in Finland is that the co-inventors – or those to whom the rights to the invention have been entrusted – can only settle together the acts relating to the invention as a whole. It is possible to sell your share, but the authorization of all is required to transfer or concede the entire invention. A good and effective alternative is to agree that one of the co-inventors is responsible for the protection and commercialization of the invention and that he or she makes the appropriate decisions independently or within mutually agreed limits. In return, the owner of the marketing will moderately compensate the other co-owners.
All this should be enshrined in an agreement from the beginning of the cooperation, especially when the “Inventions” initiative is expected. . . .