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  "data": {
    "topic": "invention-assignment",
    "state": "alaska",
    "frontmatter": {
      "title": "Employee Invention Assignment in Alaska",
      "description": "Alaska has no employee-invention-assignment statute — the one legislative attempt, 2022 Senate Bill 232, died in committee — so an assignment clause is bounded only by ordinary contract law, the common-law default rules, and the federal patent and copyright overlay, not a California-style own-time carve-out or notice requirement. Absent a written assignment the inventor owns unless hired to invent, no Alaska decision found in our review addresses employee-invention ownership, and a post-employment holdover clause is unsettled — the likeliest analogy is Alaska's restrictive-covenant line, where courts reform overbroad restraints drafted in good faith but refuse to save willful overreach.",
      "state": "Alaska",
      "lastReviewed": "2026-07-03",
      "license": "CC BY 4.0",
      "authors": [
        "steven-obiajulu"
      ],
      "summary": {
        "bottomLine": "Alaska has no employee-invention-assignment statute — the one legislative attempt, 2022 Senate Bill 232, died in committee — so an assignment clause is bounded only by ordinary contract law, the common-law default rules, and the federal patent and copyright overlay, with no own-time carve-out and no notice requirement; absent a written assignment the inventor owns unless hired to invent, no Alaska decision found in our review addresses employee-invention ownership or a trailing clause, and a holdover clause would most likely be tested by analogy under Alaska's restrictive-covenant line, where courts reform overbroad restraints drafted in good faith but refuse to alter willful overreach.",
        "keyLaw": "No Alaska invention-assignment statute; Stanford v. Roche, 563 U.S. 776 (2011); Data Mgmt., Inc. v. Greene, 757 P.2d 62 (Alaska 1988)",
        "statutoryCarveOut": "none",
        "defaultOwnership": "employee",
        "employeeNoticeRequired": "n/a",
        "holdoverClauseLimit": "unsettled",
        "carveOutScope": "Alaska has no statutory own-time carve-out — 2022 Senate Bill 232, which would have created one, died in committee — so the reach of an assignment clause is limited only by ordinary contract law, the common-law inventor-owns default (subject to the hired-to-invent exception and the employer's shop right), and the federal patent and copyright overlay."
      },
      "about": [
        "Alaska invention assignment",
        "Alaska no invention-assignment statute",
        "Alaska employee invention ownership",
        "Alaska Senate Bill 232 invention assignment",
        "Data Management v. Greene reasonable alteration",
        "Alaska hired to invent",
        "Alaska shop right",
        "Alaska holdover trailing assignment"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "language": "中文",
          "status": "planned"
        },
        {
          "language": "Español",
          "status": "planned"
        },
        {
          "language": "Português",
          "status": "planned"
        },
        {
          "language": "Deutsch",
          "status": "planned"
        }
      ],
      "relatedForm": {
        "slug": "openagreements-confidentiality-invention-assignment-agreement"
      }
    },
    "questions": [
      {
        "slug": "statutory-carve-out",
        "label": "Can the employer require assignment of every invention?",
        "heading": "Can an Alaska employer require assignment of every invention?",
        "answerText": "There is no statutory ceiling. Alaska has no employee-invention-assignment statute — nothing that voids an assignment of a true own-time, own-resource invention — so an assignment clause's reach is bounded only by ordinary contract law, the common-law inventor-owns default, and the federal patent and copyright overlay. The Legislature considered a California-style carve-out once, in 2022 Senate Bill 232, and let it die in committee.",
        "sources": [
          {
            "id": "sb232-own-time-carve-out",
            "authorityType": "primary-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "Alaska Senate Bill 232 (2022) — proposed AS 23.10.038",
            "citation": "S.B. 232, 32nd Leg., 2d Sess. (Alaska 2022) (proposed AS 23.10.038(a); died in committee).",
            "url": "https://www.akleg.gov/PDF/32/Bills/SB0232A.PDF",
            "proposition": "Senate Bill 232 (2022) supports the premise that Alaska considered — and did not enact — a California-style own-time invention carve-out; the bill would have added AS 23.10.038 and died in the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee.",
            "verbatimQuote": "A person may not require as a condition of employment that an employee assign or offer to assign the employee's rights in an invention that the employee developed entirely on the employee's own time without using the person's equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secret information unless the invention (1) relates, at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention, to the person's business or actual or anticipated research or development; or (2) results from work performed by the employee for the person.",
            "date": "2022-03-15",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/alaska#src-sb232-own-time-carve-out"
          },
          {
            "id": "stanford-baseline",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "Bd. of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior Univ. v. Roche Molecular Systems",
            "citation": "Bd. of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior Univ. v. Roche Molecular Sys., Inc., 563 U.S. 776 (2011).",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/218133/board-of-trustees-of-the-leland-stanford-junior-university-v-roche/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/218133/board-of-trustees-of-the-leland-stanford-junior-university-v-roche/#:~:text=Since%201790%2C%20the%20patent%20law,invention%20belong%20to%20the%20inventor.",
            "proposition": "Stanford v. Roche confirms the long-standing premise of U.S. patent law that rights in an invention belong to the inventor, the baseline against which any assignment clause is measured.",
            "verbatimQuote": "Since 1790, the patent law has operated on the premise that rights in an invention belong to the inventor.",
            "date": "2011-06-06",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/alaska#src-stanford-baseline"
          },
          {
            "id": "autsa-contract-claims-coexist",
            "authorityType": "primary-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "AS 45.50.910 / .915 / .930 (AUTSA)",
            "citation": "Alaska Stat. § 45.50.930(b)(1).",
            "url": "https://www.akleg.gov/pdf/billfiles/SLAs/SLA%201988/CH%20103%20SLA%201988.pdf",
            "proposition": "AS 45.50.930(b)(1) supports the rule that the Alaska Uniform Trade Secrets Act does not affect contractual liability or relief that is not based on misappropriation of a trade secret, so contract-based invention-assignment claims coexist with AUTSA.",
            "verbatimQuote": "contractual or other civil liability or relief that is not based upon misappropriation of a trade secret",
            "date": "1988-09-02",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/alaska#src-autsa-contract-claims-coexist"
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "slug": "employee-notice",
        "label": "Must the employer give the employee written notice of the carve-out?",
        "heading": "Must an Alaska employer notify the employee?",
        "answerText": "Not applicable. Because Alaska has no invention-assignment statute, there is no statutory carve-out to notify the employee about and no notice requirement of the kind California imposes under Labor Code § 2872 or Washington imposes under RCW 49.44.140(3). Even the failed 2022 bill contained no employer-notice provision — it paired its carve-out with an unenforceability rule and a forum protection, nothing more.",
        "sources": [
          {
            "id": "sb232-no-notice-provision",
            "authorityType": "primary-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "Alaska Senate Bill 232 (2022) — proposed AS 23.10.038",
            "citation": "S.B. 232, 32nd Leg., 2d Sess. (Alaska 2022) (proposed AS 23.10.038(b); died in committee).",
            "url": "https://www.akleg.gov/PDF/32/Bills/SB0232A.PDF",
            "proposition": "Senate Bill 232 (2022) supports the point that even Alaska's failed carve-out bill created only an unenforceability rule and a forum protection — it contained no employer-notice provision, so no notice duty was ever proposed, let alone enacted.",
            "verbatimQuote": "A provision in an employment agreement that violates (a) of this section is unenforceable.",
            "date": "2022-03-15",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/alaska#src-sb232-no-notice-provision"
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "slug": "default-ownership",
        "label": "Absent a written assignment, who owns the invention?",
        "heading": "Who owns an invention by default in Alaska?",
        "answerText": "The inventor, unless hired to invent. Alaska's appellate courts have never decided an employee-invention ownership dispute — our review found no Alaska shop-right, hired-to-invent, or invention-assignment decision at all — so the default comes entirely from the federal baseline: rights in an invention belong to the employee who conceived it, with a narrow exception for the employee hired to invent.",
        "sources": [
          {
            "id": "stanford-inventor",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "Bd. of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior Univ. v. Roche Molecular Systems",
            "citation": "Bd. of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior Univ. v. Roche Molecular Sys., Inc., 563 U.S. 776 (2011).",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/218133/board-of-trustees-of-the-leland-stanford-junior-university-v-roche/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/218133/board-of-trustees-of-the-leland-stanford-junior-university-v-roche/#:~:text=Since%201790%2C%20the%20patent%20law,invention%20belong%20to%20the%20inventor.",
            "proposition": "Stanford v. Roche confirms the long-standing premise of U.S. patent law that rights in an invention belong to the inventor.",
            "verbatimQuote": "Since 1790, the patent law has operated on the premise that rights in an invention belong to the inventor.",
            "date": "2011-06-06",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/alaska#src-stanford-inventor"
          },
          {
            "id": "stanford-traceback",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "Bd. of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior Univ. v. Roche Molecular Systems",
            "citation": "Bd. of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior Univ. v. Roche Molecular Sys., Inc., 563 U.S. 776 (2011).",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/218133/board-of-trustees-of-the-leland-stanford-junior-university-v-roche/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/218133/board-of-trustees-of-the-leland-stanford-junior-university-v-roche/#:~:text=Thus%2C%20although%20others%20may%20acquire,trace%20back%20to%20the%20inventor.",
            "proposition": "Stanford v. Roche holds that although others may acquire an interest in an invention, that interest as a general rule must trace back to the inventor — so an employer takes title only through an assignment from the employee-inventor.",
            "verbatimQuote": "Thus, although others may acquire an interest in an invention, any such interest — as a general rule — must trace back to the inventor.",
            "date": "2011-06-06",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/alaska#src-stanford-traceback"
          },
          {
            "id": "dubilier-hired-to-invent",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "United States v. Dubilier Condenser Corp.",
            "citation": "United States v. Dubilier Condenser Corp., 289 U.S. 178 (1933).",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1087847/united-states-v-dubilier-condenser-corp/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1087847/united-states-v-dubilier-condenser-corp/#:~:text=One%20employed%20to%20make%20an,his%20employer%20any%20patent%20obtained.",
            "proposition": "United States v. Dubilier Condenser Corp. holds that an employee hired to make an invention who succeeds during the term of service is bound to assign the resulting patent to the employer.",
            "verbatimQuote": "One employed to make an invention, who succeeds, during his term of service, in accomplishing that task, is bound to assign to his employer any patent obtained.",
            "date": "1933-05-08",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/alaska#src-dubilier-hired-to-invent"
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "slug": "holdover-clause-limit",
        "label": "Are post-employment trailing-assignment clauses enforceable?",
        "heading": "Are trailing-assignment (holdover) clauses enforceable in Alaska?",
        "answerText": "Unsettled. No Alaska decision found in our review addresses a trailing clause reaching inventions conceived after employment ends — indeed, none addresses employee-invention ownership at all — and there is no statutory cap because there is no invention-assignment statute. If an Alaska court treated a holdover clause as a restraint of trade, the likeliest framework is the state's restrictive-covenant line, which strictly construes such restraints but reforms overbroad ones the employer proves were drafted in good faith.",
        "sources": [
          {
            "id": "decristofaro-strict-construction",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "DeCristofaro v. Security Nat. Bank",
            "citation": "DeCristofaro v. Sec. Nat'l Bank, 664 P.2d 167, 168-69 (Alaska 1983).",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1234367/decristofaro-v-security-national-bank/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1234367/decristofaro-v-security-national-bank/#:~:text=restraints%20upon%20trade%20and%20because,They%20are%2C%20therefore%2C%20strictly%20construed.",
            "proposition": "DeCristofaro supports the baseline Alaska rule that non-competition agreements are disfavored as restraints upon trade and are strictly construed — the interpretive posture a holdover invention clause would face if treated as a restraint.",
            "verbatimQuote": "restraints upon trade and because they impose hardships upon individuals seeking to earn a livelihood. They are, therefore, strictly construed.",
            "date": "1983-05-27",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/alaska#src-decristofaro-strict-construction"
          },
          {
            "id": "wenzell-restatement-188",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "Dominic Wenzell, DMD PC v. Ingrim",
            "citation": "Dominic Wenzell, DMD PC v. Ingrim, 228 P.3d 103 (Alaska 2010) (quoting Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 188(1)).",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2601652/dominic-wenzell-dmd-pc-v-ingrim/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2601652/dominic-wenzell-dmd-pc-v-ingrim/#:~:text=(a)%20the%20restraint%20is%20greater,likely%20injury%20to%20the%20public.",
            "proposition": "Wenzell, quoting Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 188, supplies Alaska's two-prong reasonableness test for restraints of trade — unenforceable if broader than needed to protect the promisee's legitimate interest, or if that need is outweighed by hardship to the promisor and likely injury to the public; Wenzell applied it to a sale-of-business covenant, a category Alaska scrutinizes less strictly than employment covenants.",
            "verbatimQuote": "(a) the restraint is greater than is needed to protect the promisee's legitimate interest, or (b) the promisee's need is outweighed by the hardship to the promisor and the likely injury to the public.",
            "date": "2010-04-09",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/alaska#src-wenzell-restatement-188"
          },
          {
            "id": "data-management-reasonable-alteration",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "Data Management, Inc. v. Greene",
            "citation": "Data Mgmt., Inc. v. Greene, 757 P.2d 62, 64 (Alaska 1988).",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1350283/data-management-inc-v-greene/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1350283/data-management-inc-v-greene/#:~:text=The%20third%20approach%2C%20and%20the,faith%20is%20on%20the%20employer.",
            "proposition": "Data Management supports Alaska's reasonable-alteration rule: an overbroad covenant is judicially altered to a reasonable scope rather than voided, unless the court finds it was not drafted in good faith — and the employer bears the burden of proving good-faith drafting.",
            "verbatimQuote": "The third approach, and the one we adopt, is to hold that if an overbroad covenant not to compete can be reasonably altered to render it enforceable, then the court shall do so unless it determines the covenant was not drafted in good faith. The burden of proving that the covenant was drafted in good faith is on the employer.",
            "date": "1988-07-01",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/alaska#src-data-management-reasonable-alteration"
          },
          {
            "id": "data-management-good-faith-gate",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "Data Management, Inc. v. Greene",
            "citation": "Data Mgmt., Inc. v. Greene, 757 P.2d 62, 65 (Alaska 1988).",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1350283/data-management-inc-v-greene/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1350283/data-management-inc-v-greene/#:~:text=The%20trial%20court%20must%20determine,refuse%20to%20alter%20the%20covenant.",
            "proposition": "Data Management supports the anti-overreach rule that a court must determine whether the employer overreached willfully and, if so, must refuse to alter the covenant — so willful overreach forfeits Alaska's reformation remedy entirely.",
            "verbatimQuote": "The trial court must determine whether an employer has overreached willfully and, if so, the court should refuse to alter the covenant.",
            "date": "1988-07-01",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/alaska#src-data-management-good-faith-gate"
          },
          {
            "id": "metcalfe-narrow-restraint-latitude",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "Metcalfe Investments, Inc. v. Garrison",
            "citation": "Metcalfe Invs., Inc. v. Garrison, 919 P.2d 1356, 1361 (Alaska 1996).",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1274957/metcalfe-investments-inc-v-garrison/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1274957/metcalfe-investments-inc-v-garrison/#:~:text=Such%20restrictive%20covenants%20are%20subject,than%20blanket%20prohibitions%20of%20competition.",
            "proposition": "Metcalfe supports the rule that narrow activity restraints receive a less stringent reasonableness test than blanket prohibitions of competition — the gradient a tethered trailing-assignment clause would invoke by analogy.",
            "verbatimQuote": "Such restrictive covenants are subject to a less stringent test of reasonableness than blanket prohibitions of competition.",
            "date": "1996-06-28",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/alaska#src-metcalfe-narrow-restraint-latitude"
          },
          {
            "id": "as-45-50-562-general-antitrust",
            "authorityType": "primary-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "AS 45.50.562 (Alaska Restraint of Trade Act)",
            "citation": "Alaska Stat. § 45.50.562.",
            "url": "https://www.akleg.gov/basis/statutes.asp?media=print&secStart=45.50.562&secEnd=45.50.562",
            "proposition": "AS 45.50.562 is Alaska's general antitrust prohibition on contracts in restraint of trade — a Sherman Act analogue, not an employment-covenant framework, so it supplies no statutory standard for a holdover invention clause.",
            "verbatimQuote": "Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce is unlawful.",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/alaska#src-as-45-50-562-general-antitrust"
          },
          {
            "id": "stanford-traceback-practice",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "Bd. of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior Univ. v. Roche Molecular Systems",
            "citation": "Bd. of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior Univ. v. Roche Molecular Sys., Inc., 563 U.S. 776 (2011).",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/218133/board-of-trustees-of-the-leland-stanford-junior-university-v-roche/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/218133/board-of-trustees-of-the-leland-stanford-junior-university-v-roche/#:~:text=Thus%2C%20although%20others%20may%20acquire,trace%20back%20to%20the%20inventor.",
            "proposition": "Stanford v. Roche holds that although others may acquire an interest in an invention, that interest as a general rule must trace back to the inventor — so an employer takes title only through an assignment from the employee-inventor.",
            "verbatimQuote": "Thus, although others may acquire an interest in an invention, any such interest — as a general rule — must trace back to the inventor.",
            "date": "2011-06-06",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/alaska#src-stanford-traceback-practice"
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}