How to Encourage Employee Inventors in Your Company to File for More Patents
As employee inventors continue to file more patents with the Patent office, it’s important that you encourage them to do the same within your company. There are many ways in which a company can encourage its employee inventors to file for more patents. If you’re ready to help your company get even more value out of your employee inventor program, you should follow these tips. Encouraging your employee inventors to file for more patents will strengthen the return on investment you receive from them as well as safeguard your company against future patent infringement lawsuits. Let’s take a look at some ideas for how you can encourage employee inventors in your company to file for more patents.
Create a culture of innovation
A strong company culture of innovation will help employees feel more confident to file patents. It will also help them understand the value of patents and why filing for them might be a good idea. Therefore, building such a culture in your company that not only fosters innovation but also encourages Patent filings can go a long way.
Set clear expectations for filing patents
It’s important that you have clear expectations for filing patents for all employees within your company. Once the expectations are set, employees and teams will have specific goals to achieve, which may encourage them. Also, you may consider linking the Patent filing goals with performance assessment, promotion, and salary appraisal. This may help in indicating the importance you place on Patents to your employees.
Make it easy for employee inventors to file for patents
Make sure that the process for filing patents is as easy as possible for your employees. Having a difficult process for filing patents that employees have to jump through can result in them not filing for patents at all. To encourage your employee inventors to file for patents, you’ll want to make it as easy as possible.
Organize and celebrate your employee inventors’ efforts
While you want to make the filing process easy, you also want to celebrate employee inventors’ efforts. Show your employee inventors that you value their work by celebrating the patents they file and their efforts to file patents. You can do this in a number of ways. Hold an annual patent party where you celebrate employee patent filings, have a wall of patents in the company where everyone can see the patents that have been filed, or have a digital platform where employees can see all the patents that have been filed by other employees.
Offer rewards for filing more patents
Employee inventors are likely working on new ideas every day. It’s important that you encourage them to file for patents on these new ideas. Rewards can help encourage employee inventors to file for more patents. Talk to your employees and find out what they might want as rewards for filing patents. You can also get creative and offer rewards that aren’t financial. For example, you can offer paid vacations or certificates of recognition or celebrate employee inventors’ efforts in other creative ways.
Provide ongoing training to build up your employee inventors’ IP knowledge
Training employees can go a long way in increasing the number of patent filings within your company. Find ways to make patent training accessible to your employee inventors. You can do this through a variety of mediums including in-person training by external subject matter experts and well-known IP attorneys, online training, or even podcasts and videos. Let your employee inventors know that you’re there to help them understand more about patents and the process of filing them so that they can make better decisions about which inventions qualify for patent filings.
Conclusion
Your employee inventors are likely filing more patents than ever before. It’s important that you encourage them to file for more patents within your company. There are many ways in which a company can encourage its employee inventors to file for more patents. If you’re ready to help your company get even more value out of your employee inventor program, you should follow these tips. Create a culture of innovation, set clear expectations for filing patents, make it easy for employee inventors to file for patents, organize and celebrate your employee inventors’ efforts, offer rewards for filing more patents, and provide ongoing training to build up your employee inventors’ IP knowledge.
Disclaimer: This article was initially generated using an AI technology, and was later updated by IP attorneys at BananaIP Counsels. The authorship of this article vests with the AI technology, and BananaIP or it’s attorneys do not take any responsibility or authorship with respect to the article. The opinions expressed in the article are those of the AI machine, and not those of attorneys of BananaIP. You are advised to take legal opinion before taking any action based on this article. BananaIP or it’s attorneys do not endorse the authenticity or factual validity of this article, and all liability is expressly disclaimed.
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