By Sanna Wolk, LL.D./S.J.D.
Die Expertennotizen von IP|Notiz sollen ein Forum für Experten im so genannten „Grünen Bereich” und daran angeschlossenen Rechtsgebieten bilden. Unser Ziel ist es, damit den öffentlichen Austausch in unserem Rechtsgebiet auch im Internet zu fördern. Die mit einer Veröffentlichung im Internet einhergehende Transparenz des wissenschaftlichen Diskurses für die Öffentlichkeit ist uns dabei ein wichtiges Anliegen.
1. Introduction
In Sweden, invention work is to a great extent carried out by employees. This means that a significant number – and probably a majority – of inventions are created in an employment relationship. Today, employees may not directly question that all or part of the exclusive rights to an invention accrues to the employer. However, there is an identifiable burgeoning opinion that employed inventors to a greater extent wish to receive reasonable compensation for their creative work, especially when businesses make large amounts of money due to the inventions of their employees.
In Sweden there is a special law governing employers’ rights to employees’ inventions, namely the Act on the Right to Employee’s Inventions no. 345 of 1949. The Act applies to patentable inventions made by employees in their private or public employment. However, the Act is not applicable to inventions made by university researchers (teacher exception). Swedish universities are supposed to carry on educational activities, rather than to pursue commercial activities, and as a matter of principle teachers and researchers employed by universities own their inventions.
The Act on the Right to Employee’s Inventions is mostly non-mandatory, and individual contracts or collective agreements may govern the transfer of patent rights in inventions, and in the private sector, rights in employee inventions are also regulated by collective agreements. However, the most important employee rights are mandatory. Thus, for example, the employee has a mandatory right to a reasonable remuneration in compensation for the rights transferred to the employer. An employee cannot be deprived of this right by way of an individual contract or collective agreement.
The reason for the right to special remuneration being expressed in a mandatory provision is that the legislator has wished to inspire creative work, at the same time as the regulation protects the weaker party, since negotiations between employer and employee are frequently characterised by imbalance. It is important from a societal point of view to stimulate the desire to innovate, and extra remuneration to the employee may constitute an incentive for creativity, while at the same time an employer may obtain competitive advantages or economic profit by assuming an employee’s invention. The inventor must be rewarded for this positive result. There are however no exact statements in the preparatory works as to what actually constitutes reasonable remuneration. (mehr …)