Clause 10 - Compensation of employees for certain inventions
Patents Bill
11:15 am
Mr James Arbuthnot (Shadow Secretary of State for Trade, International Affairs; North East Hampshire, Conservative)
On Second Reading, I said that I did not understand the need for this change. The current law says that where an employee has made an invention that belongs to the employer, and as a result there is an outstanding benefit to the employer, the employee shall be entitled to compensation, provided that the existence of the patent is of outstanding benefit to the employer. The clause changes that so that the outstanding benefit refers not only to the existence of the patent but to the existence of the invention, or a combination of the two.
On Second Reading, I said that I did not understand the basis of the existing law. I do not understand why it is necessary to provide special compensation arrangements for employees who make outstanding inventions, when it is not set down in law that employees who make outstanding marketing contributions to those inventions should get special compensation. I do not understand the current law, still less the need to extend it, thereby extending the anomalies that inevitably already exist.
On Second Reading, I said that if an employee makes an invention and the employer applies for a patent, the compensation provisions arise, but if an employee makes an invention and the employer decides to keep it secret, they do not. The anomalies between inventors, marketers, financiers and all the other employees who contribute to the success of an invention are already bad enough, and to extend them is bizarre. Perhaps the Minister has some frightfully good reasons for that. This is not something on which I would wish to go to the stake, but it requires considerable justification.