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> the company would have to hire back the original inventors to defend them in court What makes you say that? I'm genuinely curious. I'm the named inventor on
by lucozade 9y ago
> the company would have to hire back the original inventors to defend them in court
What makes you say that? I'm genuinely curious. I'm the named inventor on a few of patents for a previous employer that were all granted after I left. It never occurred to me that they would continue to need my services (nor have they).
BTW have you asked your previous employer about the situation? My guess is that @smoyer's situation is fairly rare and the company will likely consider it a perk rather than an entitlement. It's not clear there would be any harm in asking though.
- wsr 9y agoI have friends who have gone through this experience. I was pretty surprised too that the company was willing to pay so much to defend their patents. Granted... my friend's rate was fairly reasonable... I think between $500-$1000/hour in probably the early 2000s. It really depends on the patent in the end of the day. If a company can potentially lose tens or hundreds of millions over a lost lawsuit, spending a million on legal defense would be very reasonable. I have not talked to my employer about this. I wanted to get some collective wisdom from the HN community before approaching them. But yeah, I'll definitely give it a shot. It doesn't hurt to ask.