Intellectual Property in the employment context

Intellectual Property in the employment context

Home

Intellectual Property in the employment context
intellectualproperty_employee

Overview

Intellectual Property in the employment context

 

The manner in which intellectual property (“IP”) is regulated within the employment context is of paramount importance to employers, particularly those developing new products, software and new techonologies or processes. Employers will want to ensure that they own any and all IP rights avoiding possible tension with employees who may consider turn their idea into a start up.

 

Copyright

 

The Copyright Act (Cap. 415 of the Laws of Malta) seeks to protect the creation of author’s original works, which includes softwares, litererary or artistic works irrespective of the fact that the person might have been employed, engaged or otherwise commissioned to carry out the work. However by way of excpetion, the Copyright Act, states that in the case of computer programs and databases is made by an employee in the course of employment, their employer is the first owner of any copyright in the work subject to any agreement between the parties excluding or limiting such transfer. In respect of other works eligible for copyright, in such circumstances, subject to any agreement ot the contrary between the parties, the copyright shall always vest in the author.

 

Employment contracts tend to include provisions where employees give up their authorship rights over the work they have authored for their employee and relinquish moral rights (such as the right to be identified as an author/creator of a copyright work).

 

Patents

 

The Patents and Designs Act (Cap, 417 of the Laws of Malta) holds that inventions made in the execution of a contract of employment, belong, in the absence of contractual provisions to the persons who commissioned the work or to the employer and not to the inventor.

 

Employers must be careful to give their inventor employees the appropriate remuneration for their work, as Courts may intervene and award additional remuneration to an employed inventor when taking into account the inventor’s salary, the economic value of the invention and any benefit which is derived therefrom by the employer.

 

Inventorship rights such as the right to be mentioned as inventor of a patent cannot be transferred and can only be waived.

 

The Patents and Designs Act provides that a special written declaration addressed to the Comptroller of Industrial Property is necessary for the inventor’s name not to be mentioned.

Our Services

At Empleo, we can help employees navigate through the legal framework protecting IP rights within the context of employment and beyond.

 

Some of our services in this area include the following:

  • Preparation / review of employment contracts 
  • Employment contract negotiation 
  • Advice on employee rights and obligations 
  • Review of workplace handbooks and policies and advice on implications on employees 
  • Advice on amendments to related employment conditions 
  • Review of addenda or amendments to employment contracts

 

You may get in touch with us here to request an initial free legal consultation in relation to any of the matters outlined above.

News