My experiences with patents and new ideas

Today jobs have become such that everything one does has to be different to the standards.Innovate to survive is the motto companies want their employees to
follow. Companies like Apple,Google,IBM have specific contracts with their employees for intellectual properties . Employees get a sizeable sum of money for each patent they file.
I was working in IBM and there was a drive for new ideas and for each file(patent) there was a sum of $1000 paid to the employee and though the money offered got reduced with each new idea,each new idea/patent generated contributed to the appraisal ,a change in designation and a better reputation. This seemed fair enough as the company had to pay a good amount of money for each patent filed with the USA Patent and Trademark office . What if the idea submitted by an employee got used by the company for a product which generates a lot of revenues or by any other company and that company is making huge profits. Now a company like IBM tried to be fair and gives a small share of the loyalty to the employee as there is a rare chance for a idea to get integrated in a product and succeed. But what if the employee has worked on an idea totally outside his work domain and not related to his job at all .Then the employee still has an
opportunity to file the idea directly at the US PTO but the employee has to pay the registration charges by himself and ofcourse the employee would be entitled with the full royalty. I think nowdays with the companies and employees both knowing that innovation being the order of the day, both the parties know clearly about the clauses and the contracts signed related to IP. A company which wants its employees to think freely gives the full freedom to the employees of course keeping in mind the advantages for the company and similarly the employee who knows that he has the ability to develop IP's makes sure he gets the best benefit from his contract. IBM also had separate open source contracts that had to be signed by employees too to make sure that employees dont get inspired by company techniques and write new concepts inspired from company materials. So the employees have to make sure that when they sign the contract it
satisfies their freedom to explore and if it does'nt the individual should only agree for a contract which presses forward mutual benefits and doesnt cause any disadvantage to either of the parties.

Standing Up For Their Rights

In our country where cricket is not just a game its religion, the BCCI (Board of Cricket Control in India) has been very effective in the marketing of cricketing events. Today everything connected with Cricket is considered a “Property” of the BCCI and used as an instrument of “licensing for a fee”. This has been possible because of excellent Brand management of BCCI. The high brand value of Indian Cricketers is not only due to their competence and performance and ICC rating but BCCI’s positioning of the Cricketing events as well. The BCCI is one of the strongest members among the ten full members of ICC. Since the BCCI provides a platform to the individuals to build their career and individual brand, BCCI expected that the player will do everything as per their guidelines. But the opposite happened players were more concerned about their individual agreement with the sponsors. Keeping the concerns of the players in mind the BCCI proposed them to sign the agreement only for the Champions Trophy, after which it promised to take up the matter with ICC (Perhaps BCCI realised the fact that most of the players are having individual contract with several different sponsors and signing the current deal will lead to several undesirable consequences). Players still refused to sign by giving their arguments.

The ICC also behaved in similar to the BCCI without consulting the stakeholders with the assumption and belief that they are the international governing body for cricket so everything they will say the members will follow. As this was the prevalent practice earlier. Perhaps ICC also believed that the existence of BCCI and their phenomenal success is because of their association with ICC. The degree of importance of ICC or BCCI can’t be denied but as a parent organisation their behaviour towards the stake holders was really questioned by the Indian players. I am not covering the player’s perspective because I have similar views as given by other participants.

The key learning we can have from our heroes even if they had an agreement with BCCI it can’t rule their own fundamental right to their involvement in off the job activities. Also there may be certain clauses which can be self contradictory as mentioned by the players that "The ICC restrictions are overly broad, covering not just the Champions Trophy but thirty days before and after. In the present case, therefore, by simply signing the contract, the ICC could already allege breach," the players said, pointing out that less than one month remained for the start of Champions Trophy. Also one should Never ever underestimate own brand value and rights at the same time one must keep the individual professional commitments. When all the players raised the issue together they have a unique strength which made the BCCI to consider the issue seriously. Similar situations may arise in real life IPR issue related with employee & employer at work place as well. It becomes very difficult for an individual to raise their voice so collective efforts can result in better deal. An average employee in traditional sectors is not good at managing his/her own brand and neither has much knowledge about IPR related issues and also the language used in the agreement. I was not aware about IPR related issues despite working for almost five year now I able to relate the issue being discussed to the real life situations.

Exercise the “Power of Freedom”

Are we slaves working for organizations or employees of organizations? The way organizations try to exercise their right upon any piece of work or innovation by an employee, they try to enslave us. Companies just try to inhibit our right of freedom by entangling us in the quagmire of legal contracts. We get paid by an organization because we deliver some value to the organization. It is out of our work by which organizations make profit to sustain & grow further. So how can an organization exercise any right over any individual piece of work by an employee, unless it is sponsored by the organization? It is against the basic essence of freedom & if an employee is doing some individual work, he/she should negotiate with employer to remove such a clause from the employment contract which inhibits such freedom. As a matter of fact, every individual is not influential or powerful enough to bargain his/her contract. But every individual can exercise the “power of freedom” by leaving such an organization & joining some other organization, where he/she can negotiate the terms of contract. Some organizations will always try to take advantage out of such situations, so it is up to the employees to take the right step at the right time & exercise their “power of freedom”.

Position gives bargaining power.

Basically the bargaining power come from what position the person is holding. If someone joins as a fresher, basically he will have no bargaining power. As said in the class, mass recruiters like Infy, TCS, and Wipro won’t give bargaining power to anyone. As they hire in thousands they wont change their clause for few people. But after someone has gained worthy experience, becomes a critical resource, he will be having the bargaining power. Like Indian cricketers, they know that they have a lot of bargaining power, if the same thing would have happened with Indian hockey team or football team, things would have been different. Recently hockey players were penalized because they wanted a change in their contracts. But if the cricketers would have done the same , no one would have been able to penalize the.
But looking at the innovation thing, basically if the company tries to own everything a employee innovates, there won’t be any motivation from employee side to innovate. This will be a lose lose situation for everyone. Even if employee innovates, he will definitely leave the company and join a company which will recognize the innovation. As we see in both the cases, current employer will be on the losing side. So there has to be a compromise formula between the employer and employee which will be beneficial to both the parties. Some American companies allow employees to do their own projects. And Wikipedia, Google maps are few of the innovations. That way should be followed.

The views from other posts clearly states that the fundamental issue here is not money but realization of the fact that ICC owns the events and not the players participating in the event. Indian players refusing to accept the term clearly sends a signal that ICC cannot enforce its views on the players.

Indian players in question were already in terms of contract with competing brands sponsoring the ICC. To rake in the big bucks ICC not only prohibited players to endorse competing brands for the duration of match but also 30 days before and after the trophy. This strategy is used by brands sponsoring the event to monopolize their products in the mind and heart of viewer. India, Cricket is religion and viewership is maximum during the time of event which increases sales of sponsoring brands.

There have been many other instances where the strategy of promoting the official sponsors has been taken up by event organizers and the players have agreed to the terms of the contract. The reason for agreeing is backed by the event organizers who put the interest of the sport first. They are willing to compensate for the breach of contract of individual players. Why should players stop endorsing the brand? They understand the fact that best players need to play the sport and they have no rights to interfere in their personal endorsement deals which earns them money. Hence appropriate compensation should be done if there are any such clauses in the contract.

The statement by the Indian team sends a message across that the team wants to play but their hands are tied due to¬ the ICC’s dictatorial demands. The ICC has no rights to stop players from fulfilling their previous contractual obligations without adequately compensating both the players and their brands. Given the small time frames that sportsmen are active, the ICC should understand the players’ rights to earn as much as they want to during their short professional careers instead of alienating the very players they are supposed to protect.

Yes, we can definitely learn from our heroes. Any concerned person can put forth his/ her unwillingness to sign a contract. I disagree with the fact that only the ones who have edge (like students from IIMS or famous players) can ask for changes of clause in contract. As already cited, in IT industry, the new entrants hardly know what the contract holds. When I joined my first company, I was more excited to work and earn rather than look into employment contract. As and when you understand your work, you may feel the need to innovate. This is when you realize that there are clauses in your contract that stops you from doing that. I believe passion is driving force to innovate. So a new entrant may know what he is good at and may demand change in clause in employment contract. The capacity to bargain also depends on business environment. One may be into open source development in a field not related to present employer. Still there are many companies that prevent their employees to take these kinds of initiatives. They believe employees may devote more time in other business activities and their mind might be preoccupied. Thus industry wide practice has been varied when it is related to IPR, so it is better to put terms and conditions clearly beforehand to stay out of legal issues.

The Common Man: the new superhero

For the past few years, the ICC has been trying to promote cricket in non-playing countries. The BCCI is the riches cricket board in the world. It is primarily dependent on the Indian cricket players for its revenues. Almost all of the players can afford the services of consultants and lawyers who advise them on the contracts they sign. These were the primary reasons for the bargaining power of Indian players.

Looking at the interest of various stakeholders, should there be a limit on the number of endorsements that a player can do so that such conflicts can be avoided and one can focus on cricket? Shouldn't players not become bigger and important than the game itself? Wouldn't it be great if our cricketers translated their on-field heroics to off the pitch by aiding and improving the dismal situation of Indian domestic cricket and other sports as well.

Coming back to software professionals, as pointed out by Santosh, software professionals in their early career will not have the kind of bargaining power to alter contracts especially when many organizations recruit in bulk. Research has shown that an individual is at his creative best and full of ideas till the age of 25-27. Thus, by the time most professional would be able to be in a position to bargain, they would have already moved out of their creative phases. Also, early on in one's career, one has more free time on hand since one is free from family and social obligations. And hence this is the time when an individual needs to be given the freedom to explore and pursue things that he/she is passionate about.

Its time for the Common Man to take the lead. Its time that individuals in top management acted as heroes and created a culture that supports employees and innovation.

As already pointed out by Ritesh, Google is an organization that promotes and rewards innovation through its '80-20 innovation time-off model'. And it has been this very policy that has given rise to projects and services like Gmail, Google News, AdSense, Orkut etc.

Maybe its time, a Google - our hero in innovation - came up with an innovation that would benefit things like the open source movement. May be a service to educate and empower individuals and establish a level playing field that fosters creativity and innovation.

Rules of the Game should be defined

If a person does an innovation which is pertaining to the work/ project he is involved into, then information/revenues etc should be shared with the organisation. However, if the innovation/intellectual propery is nowhere related to the domain of work the person is involved into, then the organisation has no rights over it. And for this particular clause the person can claim the bargaining power while signing the contract. Although it may not be feasibly possible to look into each and every word with miniscule detail in the written contract, however contracts do exist in verbal form also and not written alone. So, the employee may orally enter into a contract with the employer to the above condition.
In the case of our Heroes discussed here, ICC and BCCI wants to make the player dance to their own tunes with regard to commercial adds. The very purpose of BCCI is to see that their players perform well in cricket and should not interfere, how much money they are earning from commercials. They have no rights over that. Consider a hypothetical situation. Prof. Ganesh wrote some articles/ papers/journals/won awards, did innovation got patents and one fine sunny day, Director and Dean came smiling at IIM-A alumni, avowed, “Look Prof. Ganesh, you did a great job by doing innovation and bringing laurels to the college, we may consider for your promotion, but all your works has to be relinquished to the college”. Now what will Prof. says? Will he agree to the above said demands? Will he simply let all his awards gathered through unremitting ceaseless efforts just slip off? Similarly, although a player may be part of the BCCI selection playing 11 team, even then it is his sheer sweats and exertions which reflect in his performance that makes him get the commercials, so, BCCI should have no official rights/concern a player may get extra income from any other legal sources.