The State of New York recently made amendments to its labor laws, specifically regarding employee inventions. With the newly instated Section 203-f in the Labor Law, any provisions in employment agreements that require employees to assign their inventions, which were developed entirely off company time and resources, to their employer, have been deemed unenforceable.
This is a significant update for both legal professionals working with labor laws, as well as employees in invention-centric industries. Under this law, any provisions in an employment agreement signed both before or after the enactment of Section 203-f, which mandate that employees transfer ownership of their inventions that have been developed entirely without their employer’s equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secrets to their employer, will not be enforceable.
For practitioners of labor law and experts in employee rights, the implications of this updated regulation are immense. The law helps to safeguard the rights and intellectual properties of inventors who are also employed, giving them autonomy over their innovations that have been developed independently of their employment.
The full details of this development are outlined in an article originally published by Harris Beach PLLC, and can be found here.