현행 직무발명제도의 고찰 및 개선방안 - 일본, 중국의 직무발명제도와 비교하여

While Japan developed its intellectual property (IP) market earlier in the three Northeast Asian countries, South Korea followed her with its high-tech products including semiconductors and mobile phones and so on. Since 1980, China has pursued continuous and innovative IP policy and therefore the three Northeast Asian countries have turned into a global intellectual property market. As the importance of this IP market is growing, the three countries continue to strengthen cooperation between their Patent and Trademark Offices and continue to carry out research on harmonizing IP systems. One of the biggest differences among the IP systems is the employee invention system which is considered to be solved first for the unification of the three nation's IP systems. The employee invention is the result of a combination of employer's design with advanced equipments and employee's excellent creativity. Each countries in the world has been operating a proper employee invention system according to its economic circumstances and policy direction. But the ownership and compensation of the inventions has been still in dispute. I suggest that the patent right for the employee invention should be transferred from the employee to the employer. If so, The instability in the ownership of a patent right will be eliminated. Instead the employee should have the right to receive the reasonable value. In this study, I reviewed the current employee invention systems of Korea, China and Japan first, and then discussed the ownership and appropriate compensation of the employee invention.