My take on the Aruda settlement: it appears that t
Post# of 72447
Posted On: 12/20/2015 5:53:38 PM
My take on the Aruda settlement: it appears that the issue under dispute was whether Aruda was doing "work for hire" -- which means he was doing work in return for compensation, which gives someone NO intellectual property rights to the work that is done -- or whether he was doing work in which he was entitled to a share of the intellectual property.
None of us know the terms on which Aruda was hired, so we can't make an informed opinion of whether or not is was "work for hire." However, I think it is entirely possible that a person growing up in a different country (Menon) might not understand the complexities of American patent law, and would assume that Aruda was hired under a "work for hire" basis, while Aruda thought that he was entitled to a share of the profits. There are all kinds of questions involved in this, and we haven't seen any contracts or employment agreements so we don't know. However it seems perfectly logical that there was a genuine misunderstanding between the parties, and that Menon made this agreement to take off the burden of the lawsuit which was hanging over the company (even if he might have prevailed in court, many years down the line). Or he may have received advice from his lawyers that in fact he (Menon) had screwed up in whatever terms of employment he had made with Aruda, and that he WAS liable. I doubt that we will ever be privy to that information.
I have been asked to sign over intellectual property as "work for hire" stuff that I developed by myself before the involvement of the other company, and have refused when I asked an attorney about what "work for hire" entailed -- so I do have a pretty good working knowledge of this issue. It's complex and easy to see how two people could have completely different understandings of the rights involved.
My OPINION is that if I were running a research project and hired someone to help, I would assume he had no rights to the product of the work that I had devised, designed, raised money for, and hired him to help with. Wouldn't you?
None of us know the terms on which Aruda was hired, so we can't make an informed opinion of whether or not is was "work for hire." However, I think it is entirely possible that a person growing up in a different country (Menon) might not understand the complexities of American patent law, and would assume that Aruda was hired under a "work for hire" basis, while Aruda thought that he was entitled to a share of the profits. There are all kinds of questions involved in this, and we haven't seen any contracts or employment agreements so we don't know. However it seems perfectly logical that there was a genuine misunderstanding between the parties, and that Menon made this agreement to take off the burden of the lawsuit which was hanging over the company (even if he might have prevailed in court, many years down the line). Or he may have received advice from his lawyers that in fact he (Menon) had screwed up in whatever terms of employment he had made with Aruda, and that he WAS liable. I doubt that we will ever be privy to that information.
I have been asked to sign over intellectual property as "work for hire" stuff that I developed by myself before the involvement of the other company, and have refused when I asked an attorney about what "work for hire" entailed -- so I do have a pretty good working knowledge of this issue. It's complex and easy to see how two people could have completely different understandings of the rights involved.
My OPINION is that if I were running a research project and hired someone to help, I would assume he had no rights to the product of the work that I had devised, designed, raised money for, and hired him to help with. Wouldn't you?
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