High Court awards inventors £1.5m for outstanding work
20th February 2009
Two researchers have been awarded £1.5 million under a little-used section of patent law which allows employees extra compensation for inventions which are of "outstanding benefit" to employers.
Companies which hire employees to invent things for them generally retain the patents and other intellectual property for those inventions. By owning those rights the companies in turn control the earnings that result from the inventions.
But a clause of the Patents Act allows for extra payments to be made in exceptional circumstances. The High Court has just made the first public award of such a payment to two scientists from Amersham International, now a subsidiary of GE Healthcare.
To read the article in full please visit the out-law website