Companies doing business in Brazil should be aware of the legal and financial consequences of not clearly setting out employees’ rights to inventions. In order to determine the ownership of an invention created under an employment relationship, Brazilian law takes into consideration the role attributed to the employee and whether inventing is part of employee’s functions.

Co-ownership of an invention can have a significant financial impact on the employer, as employees own 50% of the property rights related to the invention and are entitled to a fair remuneration.

The Nov/Dec 2016 Edition of World Intellectual Property Review (WIPR) featured the article “Clearing the Thicket of Employee Rights” written by partner Karlo Fonseca Tinoco. To view the article, click on http://www.worldipreview.com/contributed-article/clearing-the-thicket-of-employee-rights.

*Reproduced with permission from World IP Review (http://www.worldipreview.com/).

Click here to see the pdf.

Source: World IP Review

 

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