Last week the United States Supreme Court clarified the respective invention ownership rights between federal contractors and their employee inventors under the Bayh-Dole Act (35 U.S.C. §§201(e), (c), 202(a)) (“Act”) in Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University v. Roche Molecular Systems, Inc. (Sup. Ct. June 6, 2011). This case has implications on compliance with federal contracts and the practice of technology transfer, and should increase the scrutiny given invention assignment agreements between acquisition targets and their employee inventors.
