# Employee Invention Assignment in Florida[^about] Florida has no employee-invention-assignment statute — no California-style own-time carve-out and no notice requirement — so an assignment clause is bounded by ordinary contract law, the common-law inventor-owns default, and the federal patent overlay. Absent a written assignment the inventor owns unless hired to invent, and a post-employment holdover clause would most likely be tested under Fla. Stat. § 542.335's statutory reasonableness framework for restrictive covenants, though no Florida decision found in our review has applied it to a holdover invention assignment. ## Can a Florida employer require assignment of every invention? {#statutory-carve-out} **Short answer.** There is no statutory ceiling. Unlike California or New York, Florida 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 by ordinary contract law, the common-law inventor-owns default, and the federal patent overlay. The one Florida-specific outer limit is general restraint-of-trade law: where an assignment clause operates as a post-term restraint, Fla. Stat. § 542.335 polices it for reasonableness [^fl-542335-reasonableness-carveout][^stanford-baseline-carveout]. Because there is no statute on point, the limits come from general principles rather than a legislative carve-out. A full-text search of the official 2025 Florida Statutes for the terms *invention* and *inventions* surfaces only public-sector intellectual-property provisions — rules for state universities, the Florida College System, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Law Enforcement — plus unrelated sections. None is a California Labor Code § 2870-style carve-out, and none regulates what a private-employer invention-assignment clause may reach. A Florida employer therefore starts from contract law, not a statutory ceiling on what an assignment promise may capture. The Florida Supreme Court's own framework confirms that the contract is the vehicle. In *State Board of Education of Fla. v. Bourne*, the court refused to award an employer a patent absent express contract terms or a hired-to-invent engagement [^bourne-express-terms-carveout]. "We have found no case upholding the employer’s right to the patent of an employee unless the contract of employment by express terms or unequivocal inference shows that the employee was hired for the express purpose of producing the thing patented."[^bourne-express-terms-carveout] The substantive default the contract operates against is the federal patent premise restated in *Stanford v. Roche*: absent an effective assignment, rights in an invention belong to the person who conceived it [^stanford-baseline-carveout]. "Since 1790, the patent law has operated on the premise that rights in an invention belong to the inventor."[^stanford-baseline-carveout] The practical consequence is that a Florida employer can, in principle, contract for assignment more broadly than a California or Washington employer, because no statute carves out own-time inventions from the reach of the clause. But that breadth is not unlimited. An assignment clause is still an ordinary contract term subject to general contract-law defenses, and Florida separately subjects contracts that restrict competition after the employment term to a statutory reasonableness regime [^fl-542335-reasonableness-carveout]. "enforcement of contracts that restrict or prohibit competition during or after the term of restrictive covenants, so long as such contracts are reasonable in time, area, and line of business, is not prohibited."[^fl-542335-reasonableness-carveout] ## Must a Florida employer notify the employee? {#employee-notice} **Short answer.** Not applicable. Because Florida 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). What Florida enforces instead is contractual: any duty to disclose or assign inventions arises from the express terms of the agreement itself [^bourne-express-terms-notice]. There is nothing to give notice of. A notice requirement exists in California and Washington precisely to alert the employee to a statutory own-time carve-out that limits the assignment; Florida has enacted no such carve-out, so there is no statutory line for a notice to mark. This is why the entry is marked not applicable rather than a bare no: the question presupposes a statutory carve-out that Florida does not have. Where Florida does police an employer's claim to an employee invention, it looks to the contract's express terms. *State Board of Education of Fla. v. Bourne* makes the point from the employer's side — without express terms or a hired-to-invent engagement, the employer has no claim to notice anyone about [^bourne-express-terms-notice]. "We have found no case upholding the employer’s right to the patent of an employee unless the contract of employment by express terms or unequivocal inference shows that the employee was hired for the express purpose of producing the thing patented."[^bourne-express-terms-notice] One nearby statute is worth distinguishing. Florida's 2025 CHOICE Act (Fla. Stat. §§ 542.41–542.45, effective July 1, 2025) does impose written notice and review-period formalities — but only for covered garden-leave and covered noncompete agreements with certain high earners. It is a restrictive-covenant statute, not an invention-assignment statute, and it attaches no notice obligation to an ordinary invention-assignment clause. For a multistate employer the takeaway is the inverse of the notice states: a Florida employer neither has to give a § 2872-style notice nor can rely on one to cure an overbroad clause. ## Who owns an invention by default in Florida? {#default-ownership} **Short answer.** The inventor, unless hired to invent. Absent a written assignment, Florida follows the common-law rule that an invention belongs to the employee who conceived it, and the Florida Supreme Court has refused to award an employer a patent where the employment was general and the invention merely incidental to it. The narrow exception is the employee hired to invent the very thing patented [^teets-presumptive-ownership][^bourne-general-employment]. Florida's appellate courts state the default in plain terms. In the *City of Cocoa v. Leffler* litigation, Florida's Fifth District put the general rule this way [^leffler-common-law-default]: "The common law generally regards an invention as the property of the inventor who conceived, developed, and perfected it."[^leffler-common-law-default] The Federal Circuit, applying Florida law in *Teets v. Chromalloy Gas Turbine Corp.*, restated the same baseline — ownership springs from invention — and made the presumption explicit [^teets-presumptive-ownership]. "As part of that reward, an invention presumptively belongs to its creator."[^teets-presumptive-ownership] The hired-to-invent exception is the principal way an employer takes ownership without a written assignment. The Florida Supreme Court framed it narrowly in *State Board of Education of Fla. v. Bourne*: the employment must show, by express terms or unequivocal inference, that the employee was engaged to produce the thing patented [^bourne-hired-to-invent]. "We have found no case upholding the employer’s right to the patent of an employee unless the contract of employment by express terms or unequivocal inference shows that the employee was hired for the express purpose of producing the thing patented."[^bourne-hired-to-invent] *Bourne* also states the converse — general employment does not reach an incidental invention [^bourne-general-employment]. "If the employment was general and the invention was an incident to that, the employer cannot claim the patent."[^bourne-general-employment] The federal restatement of the exception matches. Under *United States v. Dubilier Condenser Corp.*, an employee engaged to make a particular invention who succeeds during the term of service must assign the resulting patent to the employer [^dubilier-hired-to-invent]. "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."[^dubilier-hired-to-invent] Short of hired-to-invent, an employee who was not bound by a written assignment but used the employer's time, tools, and materials leaves the employer with only the equitable shop right recognized in *Dubilier* — a non-exclusive license to use the invention, not ownership of it. Because ownership starts with the inventor and Florida has no statute filling the gap, the dependable path for an employer is a written present-assignment (*hereby assigns*) clause that transfers legal title automatically on conception, rather than a future promise to assign or an after-the-fact hired-to-invent argument that turns on facts about what the employee was engaged to do. ## Are trailing-assignment (holdover) clauses enforceable in Florida? {#holdover-clause-limit} **Short answer.** Most likely tested for reasonableness under Fla. Stat. § 542.335, but the invention-specific application is undecided. No Florida decision found in our review has applied § 542.335 — or any other rule — to a post-employment holdover invention-assignment clause specifically. What Florida does have, unlike pure common-law states, is a comprehensive statutory reasonableness framework for post-term restrictive covenants: a signed writing, a pleaded and proven legitimate business interest, reasonable necessity, and rebuttable time presumptions. That framework is what a Florida court would most likely reach for when asked to enforce a clause sweeping in inventions conceived after employment ends [^fl-542335-plead-and-prove][^fl-542335-void-without-lbi]. Section 542.335 is broadly worded — it governs any contract that restricts or prohibits competition during or after the term of a restrictive covenant, not just noncompetes by name — and it puts the burden on the enforcing party [^fl-542335-plead-and-prove]. "The person seeking enforcement of a restrictive covenant shall plead and prove the existence of one or more legitimate business interests justifying the restrictive covenant."[^fl-542335-plead-and-prove] A covenant that fails that showing does not merely lose on the facts; the statute voids it [^fl-542335-void-without-lbi]. "Any restrictive covenant not supported by a legitimate business interest is unlawful and is void and unenforceable."[^fl-542335-void-without-lbi] The statute also requires a writing signed by the person against whom enforcement is sought, and it supplies rebuttable time presumptions for restraints against former employees — six months or less is presumptively reasonable, more than two years presumptively unreasonable [^fl-542335-time-presumptions]. "In determining the reasonableness in time of a postterm restrictive covenant not predicated upon the protection of trade secrets, a court shall apply the following rebuttable presumptions:"[^fl-542335-time-presumptions] The closest Florida appellate decision shows how demanding the proof burden can be — but it is not a holdover-assignment holding. In *Gould & Lamb, LLC v. D'Alusio*, the employee had signed a document titled *employee invention assignment and confidentiality agreement*, yet the clause the employer sought to enforce was that agreement's noncompete, and Florida's Second District reversed enforcement because the employer failed to prove a legitimate business interest [^gould-lbi-proof]. "Generalized statements of concern cannot substitute for proof."[^gould-lbi-proof] *Teets v. Chromalloy* supplies the doctrinal reason a trailing clause is analyzed as a restraint rather than as ordinary ownership law: implied-in-fact ownership is measured by the employment relationship at the time of the inventive work, so inventions conceived after employment ends are reachable only through the express contract [^teets-inventive-work-timing]. "To apply this contract principle, a court must examine the employment relationship at the time of the inventive work to determine if the parties entered an implied-in-fact contract to assign patent rights."[^teets-inventive-work-timing] Extending § 542.335 to holdover assignments is a prediction, not a holding. The uncertainty comes from missing case law, not ambiguous text: the statute's language comfortably reaches a post-term restraint on what an ex-employee may do with future inventions, but no Florida decision found in our review has decided the question. A second open question sits alongside it: Florida's 2025 CHOICE Act (Fla. Stat. §§ 542.41–542.45) creates a separate regime for covered garden-leave and covered noncompete agreements with certain high earners, and no authority found in our review addresses whether an aggressive holdover assignment against a covered high earner could be recharacterized as a covered restraint under it. The safe reading is that an overbroad trailing clause is at meaningful risk in Florida — a court applying § 542.335's framework would demand a signed writing, proof of a legitimate business interest, and a duration a former employee could live with. > [!NOTE] > **Practice note.** > > Do not assume a Florida employee works like a California or Washington one. There is no invention-assignment statute here, so there is no statutory carve-out to rely on and no notice safe harbor — the employer's claim rises or falls on the contract's express terms and the general limits on restraints [^bourne-express-terms-carveout-practice]. Draft with present-assignment (*hereby assigns*) language so title passes automatically, because absent an effective assignment the invention presumptively belongs to its creator [^teets-presumptive-ownership-practice]. Keep any trailing or holdover assignment narrow, short, and tied to a provable legitimate business interest: no Florida decision found in our review has applied § 542.335 to a holdover invention-assignment clause, but under that framework the enforcing party carries the burden of proof — generalized statements of concern will not do [^gould-lbi-proof] — and a restraint against a former employee longer than two years is presumptively unreasonable [^fl-542335-time-presumptions]. [^about]: By Steven Obiajulu, J.D. Published by [openagreements.org](https://openagreements.org). Last reviewed 2026-07-02. License: CC BY 4.0. Steven Obiajulu, J.D. is admitted in New York, not Florida. This article synthesizes Florida primary law and is not legal advice from a Florida-admitted attorney. This article is for informational purposes only and does not create an attorney-client relationship. CC BY 4.0. Cite as Steven Obiajulu, *Employee Invention Assignment in Florida*, OpenAgreements (last updated July 2, 2026), https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/florida. [^fl-542335-reasonableness-carveout]: **Fla. Stat. § 542.335** — "enforcement of contracts that restrict or prohibit competition during or after the term of restrictive covenants, so long as such contracts are reasonable in time, area, and line of business, is not prohibited." *Fla. Stat. § 542.335(1) (2025).* [^stanford-baseline-carveout]: **Bd. of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior Univ. v. Roche Molecular Systems** — "Since 1790, the patent law has operated on the premise that rights in an invention belong to the inventor." *Bd. of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior Univ. v. Roche Molecular Sys., Inc., 563 U.S. 776 (2011).* [^bourne-express-terms-carveout]: **State Bd. of Education of Fla. v. Bourne** — "We have found no case upholding the employer’s right to the patent of an employee unless the contract of employment by express terms or unequivocal inference shows that the employee was hired for the express purpose of producing the thing patented." *State Bd. of Education of Fla. v. Bourne, 150 Fla. 323, 7 So. 2d 838 (Fla. 1942).* [^bourne-express-terms-notice]: **State Bd. of Education of Fla. v. Bourne** — "We have found no case upholding the employer’s right to the patent of an employee unless the contract of employment by express terms or unequivocal inference shows that the employee was hired for the express purpose of producing the thing patented." *State Bd. of Education of Fla. v. Bourne, 150 Fla. 323, 7 So. 2d 838 (Fla. 1942).* [^teets-presumptive-ownership]: **Teets v. Chromalloy Gas Turbine Corp.** — "As part of that reward, an invention presumptively belongs to its creator." *Teets v. Chromalloy Gas Turbine Corp., 83 F.3d 403 (Fed. Cir. 1996) (applying Florida law).* [^bourne-general-employment]: **State Bd. of Education of Fla. v. Bourne** — "If the employment was general and the invention was an incident to that, the employer cannot claim the patent." *State Bd. of Education of Fla. v. Bourne, 150 Fla. 323, 7 So. 2d 838 (Fla. 1942).* [^leffler-common-law-default]: **City of Cocoa v. Leffler** — "The common law generally regards an invention as the property of the inventor who conceived, developed, and perfected it." *City of Cocoa v. Leffler, 762 So. 2d 1052 (Fla. 5th DCA 2000).* [^bourne-hired-to-invent]: **State Bd. of Education of Fla. v. Bourne** — "We have found no case upholding the employer’s right to the patent of an employee unless the contract of employment by express terms or unequivocal inference shows that the employee was hired for the express purpose of producing the thing patented." *State Bd. of Education of Fla. v. Bourne, 150 Fla. 323, 7 So. 2d 838 (Fla. 1942).* [^dubilier-hired-to-invent]: **United States v. Dubilier Condenser Corp.** — "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." *United States v. Dubilier Condenser Corp., 289 U.S. 178 (1933).* [^fl-542335-plead-and-prove]: **Fla. Stat. § 542.335** — "The person seeking enforcement of a restrictive covenant shall plead and prove the existence of one or more legitimate business interests justifying the restrictive covenant." *Fla. Stat. § 542.335(1)(b) (2025).* [^fl-542335-void-without-lbi]: **Fla. Stat. § 542.335** — "Any restrictive covenant not supported by a legitimate business interest is unlawful and is void and unenforceable." *Fla. Stat. § 542.335(1)(b) (2025).* [^fl-542335-time-presumptions]: **Fla. Stat. § 542.335** — "In determining the reasonableness in time of a postterm restrictive covenant not predicated upon the protection of trade secrets, a court shall apply the following rebuttable presumptions:" *Fla. Stat. § 542.335(1)(d) (2025).* [^gould-lbi-proof]: **Gould & Lamb, LLC v. D'Alusio** — "Generalized statements of concern cannot substitute for proof." *Gould & Lamb, LLC v. D'Alusio, 949 So. 2d 1212 (Fla. 2d DCA 2007).* [^teets-inventive-work-timing]: **Teets v. Chromalloy Gas Turbine Corp.** — "To apply this contract principle, a court must examine the employment relationship at the time of the inventive work to determine if the parties entered an implied-in-fact contract to assign patent rights." *Teets v. Chromalloy Gas Turbine Corp., 83 F.3d 403 (Fed. Cir. 1996) (applying Florida law).* [^bourne-express-terms-carveout-practice]: **State Bd. of Education of Fla. v. Bourne** — "We have found no case upholding the employer’s right to the patent of an employee unless the contract of employment by express terms or unequivocal inference shows that the employee was hired for the express purpose of producing the thing patented." *State Bd. of Education of Fla. v. Bourne, 150 Fla. 323, 7 So. 2d 838 (Fla. 1942).* [^teets-presumptive-ownership-practice]: **Teets v. Chromalloy Gas Turbine Corp.** — "As part of that reward, an invention presumptively belongs to its creator." *Teets v. Chromalloy Gas Turbine Corp., 83 F.3d 403 (Fed. Cir. 1996) (applying Florida law).*