Sweden: New agreement on employee inventions

A new Inventor Agreement has been negotiated between the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise and the Council for Negotiation and Cooperation (a body representing 25 trade unions). The Agreement is widely recognised as the basis for determining ownership and compensation in respect to employee inventions in Sweden. Many changes are quite modest, but legal action can now be initiated up to ten years from the date of a patent application, instead of the date when an employer first became aware of an invention. Furthermore, a decision has been made to establish a special arbitration tribunal to settle disputes — with the outcomes made public and a facility to stay a hearing up to four years to determine the commercial value of an invention.

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