# Employee Invention Assignment in Indiana[^about] Indiana has no employee-invention-assignment statute, so an assignment clause is bounded only by ordinary contract law, the common-law default rules, and the federal patent overlay — not a California-style own-time carve-out or notice requirement. Absent an express assignment the inventor owns and the employer holds at most a shop right under Michels v. Dyna-Kote, and no Indiana decision found in our review addresses a post-employment holdover clause, which would most likely be judged under the reasonableness limits Indiana applies to employment restraints of trade. ## Can an Indiana employer require assignment of every invention? {#statutory-carve-out} **Short answer.** There is no statutory ceiling. Unlike California or neighboring Illinois, Indiana 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 overlay. What Indiana adds is a strict-construction rule of its own: its courts read an employment agreement against the employer and will not move ownership the contract does not expressly grant [^michels-no-express][^stanford-baseline]. Because there is no statute on point, the limits come from general principles rather than a legislative carve-out. Indiana Code Title 22 (Labor and Safety) contains no employee-inventions article — the only assignment regulation anywhere in the title is the assignment-of-wages chapter, Ind. Code § 22-2-6, which governs paychecks, not patents — and Title 24 (Trade Regulation) is no different, its nearest neighbors being the Indiana Uniform Trade Secrets Act, Ind. Code § 24-2-3, and a chapter on bad-faith assertions of patent infringement. The General Assembly plainly regulates restrictive covenants when it chooses to — its physician-noncompete statute, Ind. Code § 25-22.5-5.5, was tightened again by 2025 legislation (SEA 475) barring new physician–hospital noncompetes entered into on or after July 1, 2025 — but it has never enacted a § 2870-style ceiling on what an invention-assignment promise may capture. The controlling Indiana-specific authority is *Michels v. Dyna-Kote Industries*, in which the Indiana Court of Appeals, construing an employment agreement strictly against the employer, refused to treat the employer as owner of an employee's coating formulas that the contract never expressly assigned [^michels-no-express]. "we hold that there was no express contract giving ownership of the formulas in Dyna-Kote"[^michels-no-express] The substantive default that Indiana contract law 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]. "Since 1790, the patent law has operated on the premise that rights in an invention belong to the inventor."[^stanford-baseline] The practical consequence is that an Indiana employer can, in principle, contract for assignment more broadly than a California, Illinois, or Washington employer, because no statute carves out own-time inventions from the reach of the clause. But *Michels* shows the other edge of the same rule — the clause captures what its express terms say, read strictly against the drafter, and no more. The court there also refused to let the trade-secrets statute substitute for an ownership term the employer never bargained for, pushing the dispute back to the contract itself [^michels-no-express]. There is no statutory safe harbor for the employee to invoke, and equally no statute for a sloppy drafter to fall back on. ## Must an Indiana employer notify the employee? {#employee-notice} **Short answer.** Not applicable. Because Indiana 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 Indiana enforces instead is contractual: disclosure and assignment duties exist only to the extent the agreement expressly creates them, and Indiana courts will not imply the missing promise [^michels-express-terms]. 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; Indiana 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 Indiana does not have. Where Indiana does police the employer-employee invention relationship, it does so through the contract itself. *Michels v. Dyna-Kote Industries* turned entirely on what the agreement said: with no express assignment term, ownership of the employee's formulas stayed with the employee, and the court — construing the agreement strictly against the employer — declined to read in the obligation the employer wished it had drafted [^michels-express-terms]. "we hold that there was no express contract giving ownership of the formulas in Dyna-Kote"[^michels-express-terms] For a multistate employer the takeaway is the inverse of the notice states: an Indiana employer neither has to give a § 2872-style notice nor can rely on one to cure an overbroad clause. Everything turns on the express language of the assignment term, because Indiana construes employment agreements strictly against the employer and enforces only the duties the words actually create. ## Who owns an invention by default in Indiana? {#default-ownership} **Short answer.** The inventor, unless hired to invent. Absent a written assignment, the baseline under federal patent law — which governs who holds title to a patentable invention in Indiana as elsewhere — is that rights belong to the employee who conceived it. The narrow exception is the employee hired to invent, and where the employee merely used the employer's resources, Indiana follows the shop-right rule: the employer acquires at most a license to use the invention, never ownership of it [^stanford-inventor][^michels-shop-right]. *Stanford v. Roche* anchors the default. The Supreme Court held that even the Bayh-Dole Act did not displace the long-standing rule that an invention belongs to its inventor, treating that premise as the baseline against which any assignment is measured [^stanford-inventor]. "Since 1790, the patent law has operated on the premise that rights in an invention belong to the inventor."[^stanford-inventor] Because ownership starts with the inventor, an employer's title is derivative — it exists only if and to the extent the employee assigned it. Any third-party interest must trace back to that inventor-grantor [^stanford-traceback]. "Thus, although others may acquire an interest in an invention, any such interest — as a general rule — must trace back to the inventor."[^stanford-traceback] The principal exception is the employee hired to invent. 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] Indiana's own case law runs the same framework, and *Michels v. Dyna-Kote Industries* applies every piece of it in a single opinion. Where the employee developed his formulas using the employer's resources but never expressly assigned them, the most the employer could claim was a shop right — a license to use, not title [^michels-shop-right]. "it is true that an employer may acquire a license or shop right in the use of an employee invention when it is shown the employee expended his employer's time, tools, and materials."[^michels-shop-right] And the hired-to-invent exception is applied as written, not implied. The employee in *Michels* had been brought on to run the business as its president, and the court declined to treat him as hired to invent when the contract did not say so [^michels-hired-to-invent]. "Furthermore, the contract does not specifically state that Michels was hired to invent."[^michels-hired-to-invent] Because ownership therefore starts with the inventor and Indiana 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 that leaves the employer with a mere equitable claim — and *Michels* is a standing warning that an Indiana court will hold the drafter to exactly what the clause says. ## Are trailing-assignment (holdover) clauses enforceable in Indiana? {#holdover-clause-limit} **Short answer.** Reasonableness is the only limit — and by analogy, not by holding. Indiana has no statute capping a post-employment trailing assignment, and no Indiana decision found in our review squarely decides whether a clause reaching inventions first conceived after employment ends is enforceable. Indiana treats restraints arising from employment as disfavored, construes them strictly against the employer, and enforces them only if reasonable, so a court would most likely test an aggressive holdover clause under that doctrine rather than any invention-specific rule [^krueger-strict]. Two gaps define the Indiana picture. First, there is no statute: nothing caps the duration of a post-employment trailing assignment or otherwise limits what such a clause may reach. Second, our review found no Indiana appellate decision applying the restrictive-covenant principles specifically to an invention-holdover clause, so the invention-specific application of the doctrine is a prediction rather than settled law. What Indiana supplies is a mature restrictive-covenant doctrine. In *Central Indiana Podiatry v. Krueger* the Indiana Supreme Court restated its long-held rule that noncompetition covenants arising out of employment are restraints of trade and disfavored by the law [^krueger-disfavored], and stated the operative standard plainly [^krueger-strict]. "We construe these covenants strictly against the employer and will not enforce an unreasonable restriction."[^krueger-strict] A trailing assignment clause functions as exactly such a restraint: to the extent it sweeps in inventions a former employee first conceives after leaving, it burdens that employee's ability to work and invent in the field. Measured under the *Krueger* line, an Indiana court would most likely ask whether the clause protects a legitimate employer interest — confidential information carried out the door, work begun during employment — and whether its time and subject-matter reach is reasonable. Indiana's blue-pencil rule sharpens the risk: a court may strike severable unreasonable terms but will not rewrite them, so an overbroad trailer is more likely to be excised entirely than trimmed to a reasonable core [^krueger-strict]. The most instructive invention-specific precedent is regional and persuasive only. In *Guth v. Minnesota Mining*, decided in 1934 — before *Erie* required federal courts sitting in diversity to apply state law — the Seventh Circuit struck the limitless post-employment invention-assignment provisions of an employment contract as contrary to public policy while enforcing the reasonable, during-employment portions. It is a federal common-law holding, not Indiana law, but it remains the leading nearby treatment of exactly this clause [^guth-gross]. "Assignments in gross of future inventions are not favored."[^guth-gross] > [!NOTE] > **Practice note.** > > Do not read the absence of an Indiana holdover case as a green light. No Indiana decision found in our review addresses a trailing invention-assignment clause, so the analysis here is an extrapolation from Indiana's noncompete doctrine — a doctrine under which restraints arising from employment are disfavored, construed strictly against the employer, and unenforceable if unreasonable, with blue-pencil excision rather than judicial rewriting, so an overbroad trailer risks being struck entirely rather than saved in part [^krueger-strict]. Keep any holdover assignment short, and tie it to the employer's confidential information or to work actually begun during employment; a clause without limits in time or subject matter is the profile the leading regional precedent struck as contrary to public policy, in a decision that treats wholesale assignments of future inventions as disfavored [^guth-gross]. [^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 Indiana. This article synthesizes Indiana primary law and is not legal advice from a Indiana-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 Indiana*, OpenAgreements (last updated July 2, 2026), https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/indiana. [^michels-no-express]: **Michels v. Dyna-Kote Industries, Inc.** — "we hold that there was no express contract giving ownership of the formulas in Dyna-Kote" *Michels v. Dyna-Kote Industries, Inc., 497 N.E.2d 586 (Ind. Ct. App. 1986).* [^stanford-baseline]: **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).* [^michels-express-terms]: **Michels v. Dyna-Kote Industries, Inc.** — "we hold that there was no express contract giving ownership of the formulas in Dyna-Kote" *Michels v. Dyna-Kote Industries, Inc., 497 N.E.2d 586 (Ind. Ct. App. 1986).* [^stanford-inventor]: **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).* [^michels-shop-right]: **Michels v. Dyna-Kote Industries, Inc.** — "it is true that an employer may acquire a license or shop right in the use of an employee invention when it is shown the employee expended his employer's time, tools, and materials." *Michels v. Dyna-Kote Industries, Inc., 497 N.E.2d 586 (Ind. Ct. App. 1986).* [^stanford-traceback]: **Bd. of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior Univ. v. Roche Molecular Systems** — "Thus, although others may acquire an interest in an invention, any such interest — as a general rule — must trace back to the inventor." *Bd. of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior Univ. v. Roche Molecular Sys., Inc., 563 U.S. 776 (2011).* [^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).* [^michels-hired-to-invent]: **Michels v. Dyna-Kote Industries, Inc.** — "Furthermore, the contract does not specifically state that Michels was hired to invent." *Michels v. Dyna-Kote Industries, Inc., 497 N.E.2d 586 (Ind. Ct. App. 1986).* [^krueger-strict]: **Central Indiana Podiatry, P.C. v. Krueger** — "We construe these covenants strictly against the employer and will not enforce an unreasonable restriction." *Central Indiana Podiatry, P.C. v. Krueger, 882 N.E.2d 723 (Ind. 2008).* [^krueger-disfavored]: **Central Indiana Podiatry, P.C. v. Krueger** — "contracts are in restraint of trade and disfavored by the law" *Central Indiana Podiatry, P.C. v. Krueger, 882 N.E.2d 723 (Ind. 2008).* [^guth-gross]: **Guth v. Minnesota Mining & Mfg. Co.** — "Assignments in gross of future inventions are not favored." *Guth v. Minnesota Mining & Mfg. Co., 72 F.2d 385 (7th Cir. 1934).*