

Ask HN: What's are the terms of your company's patent incentive program? - relaunched

Does your company have a patent incentive program? Generally, what are the terms?  What size is your company? How much effort does the inventor spend in crafting the application?
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tptacek
We don't have one, but in previous companies (2, to be exact) the terms have
effectively been: a pittance reward ($1000-$5000) plus an unlimited obligation
to defend the patent in the future, long after one has left the company.

That latter part actually came up for me once; I was offered compensation for
significant time spent providing expert support for a patent cross-licensing
dispute, long after I'd left the company, but it was at a fiat rate far below
my actual market value at the time.

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relaunched
Was the rate agreed upon on the front-end, in the invention assignment
agreement or later? I haven't seen that term before, but if they had to pay
for your time at a decent rate, I'd be okay with it. However, it sounds like
the rate wasn't enough to make it worthwhile.

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tptacek
Generally, patent program or not, employees at companies with real employment
contracts (ie, any BigCo) don't really have the power to hold their employers
hostage for terms for patent assignment, so this is a distinction without a
difference for me. But, "before assignment" is the answer.

You should not be OK with being legally obligated to do work for your former
employers on their schedule.

