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  "data": {
    "topic": "invention-assignment",
    "state": "louisiana",
    "frontmatter": {
      "title": "Employee Invention Assignment in Louisiana",
      "description": "Louisiana — a civil-law jurisdiction — has no employee-invention-assignment statute, so an assignment clause is an ordinary Civil Code contract bounded by the federal patent overlay, not by a California-style own-time carve-out or notice requirement. Absent a written assignment the federal inventor-first default leaves ownership with the employee, and whether a post-employment holdover clause survives Louisiana's strictly construed restraint-of-trade statute is unsettled.",
      "state": "Louisiana",
      "lastReviewed": "2026-07-02",
      "license": "CC BY 4.0",
      "authors": [
        "steven-obiajulu"
      ],
      "summary": {
        "bottomLine": "Louisiana — a civil-law jurisdiction — has no employee-invention-assignment statute, so an assignment clause is an ordinary Civil Code contract bounded by the federal patent overlay rather than a California-style own-time carve-out or notice requirement; absent a written assignment the federal inventor-first default leaves ownership with the employee, Louisiana case law takes invention-assignment provisions tethered to the employment outside the restraint-of-trade statute, and the enforceability of a true post-termination holdover clause is unsettled because no Louisiana court has decided one.",
        "keyLaw": "No Louisiana invention-assignment statute; NovelAire Technologies, L.L.C. v. Harrison, 50 So. 3d 913 (La. App. 4 Cir. 2010); La. R.S. 23:921; Stanford v. Roche, 563 U.S. 776 (2011)",
        "statutoryCarveOut": "none",
        "defaultOwnership": "employee",
        "employeeNoticeRequired": "n/a",
        "holdoverClauseLimit": "unsettled",
        "carveOutScope": "Louisiana has no statutory own-time carve-out; the reach of an assignment clause is limited only by the Civil Code's general contract rules (including the free assignability of rights under Civil Code article 2642), the federal inventor-first default with its hired-to-invent and shop-right overlays, and the risk that an untethered clause could be recharacterized as a null restraint under La. R.S. 23:921."
      },
      "about": [
        "Louisiana invention assignment",
        "Louisiana no invention-assignment statute",
        "Louisiana employee invention ownership",
        "NovelAire Technologies v. Harrison",
        "La. R.S. 23:921 invention assignment",
        "Louisiana Civil Code assignment of rights",
        "Louisiana 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 a Louisiana employer require assignment of every invention?",
        "answerText": "There is no statutory ceiling. Louisiana — a civil-law jurisdiction — has no employee-invention-assignment statute: nothing in the Louisiana Revised Statutes or the Civil Code voids an assignment of a true own-time, own-resource invention. The clause is instead an ordinary contract governed by the Civil Code, which makes rights freely assignable unless strictly personal, operating against the federal patent-law baseline that rights in an invention start with the inventor.",
        "sources": [
          {
            "id": "la-cc-2642-assignability",
            "authorityType": "primary-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "La. Civ. Code art. 2642",
            "citation": "La. Civ. Code art. 2642.",
            "url": "https://legis.la.gov/Legis/Law.aspx?d=109703",
            "proposition": "Civil Code article 2642 supports the rule that under Louisiana law all rights are assignable except those pertaining to strictly personal obligations, so there is no state-law obstacle to a present assignment of future invention rights.",
            "verbatimQuote": "All rights may be assigned, with the exception of those pertaining to obligations that are strictly personal. The assignee is subrogated to the rights of the assignor against the debtor.",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/louisiana#src-la-cc-2642-assignability"
          },
          {
            "id": "stanford-inventor-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 Louisiana 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/louisiana#src-stanford-inventor-baseline"
          },
          {
            "id": "la-rs-23-921-nullity-scope",
            "authorityType": "primary-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "La. R.S. 23:921",
            "citation": "La. R.S. 23:921(A)(1).",
            "url": "https://legis.la.gov/Legis/Law.aspx?d=84015",
            "proposition": "La. R.S. 23:921(A)(1) supports the rule that Louisiana nullifies contractual restraints on exercising a lawful profession, trade, or business except as the statute itself provides — the boundary an overbroad assignment clause would have to avoid.",
            "verbatimQuote": "Every contract or agreement, or provision thereof, by which anyone is restrained from exercising a lawful profession, trade, or business of any kind, except as provided in this Section, shall be null and void.",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/louisiana#src-la-rs-23-921-nullity-scope"
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "slug": "employee-notice",
        "label": "Must the employer give the employee written notice of the carve-out?",
        "heading": "Must a Louisiana employer notify the employee?",
        "answerText": "Not applicable. Because Louisiana 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). Disclosure and assignment duties in Louisiana arise from the terms of the agreement itself, and the leading Louisiana case treats such contractual duties as enforceable obligations outside the restraint-of-trade statute.",
        "sources": [
          {
            "id": "novelaire-disclosure-contractual",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "NovelAire Technologies, L.L.C. v. Harrison",
            "citation": "NovelAire Technologies, L.L.C. v. Harrison, 2009-1372 (La. App. 4 Cir. 10/13/10), 50 So. 3d 913.",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/5047586/novelaire-technologies-llc-v-harrison/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/5047586/novelaire-technologies-llc-v-harrison/#:~:text=Summarizing%2C%20neither%20the%20requirement%20that,governed%20by%20La.%20R.S.%2023%3A921.",
            "proposition": "NovelAire Technologies v. Harrison holds that an employee's contractual duties to disclose discoveries and to keep information confidential are not a non-compete governed by La. R.S. 23:921 — in Louisiana those duties arise from the agreement itself, not from any notice-requiring statute.",
            "verbatimQuote": "Summarizing, neither the requirement that Mr. Harrison disclose to NovelAire his discoveries, nor the requirement that he not disclose confidential information constitute a non-compete contract governed by La. R.S. 23:921.",
            "date": "2010-10-13",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/louisiana#src-novelaire-disclosure-contractual"
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "slug": "default-ownership",
        "label": "Absent a written assignment, who owns the invention?",
        "heading": "Who owns an invention by default in Louisiana?",
        "answerText": "The employee-inventor, under federal patent law. Louisiana has no statute assigning employee inventions to either side, and our review found no Louisiana state-court decision articulating a civilian default-ownership rule of its own — so the field is governed by the federal defaults: rights belong to the inventor, the employer may claim an invention only from an employee hired to invent, and the employer's fallback where its time and tools were used is a shop-right license, not title.",
        "sources": [
          {
            "id": "stanford-inventor-default",
            "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 default that governs in Louisiana absent a written assignment.",
            "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/louisiana#src-stanford-inventor-default"
          },
          {
            "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 a Louisiana 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/louisiana#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/louisiana#src-dubilier-hired-to-invent"
          },
          {
            "id": "hobbs-shop-right-definition",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "Hobbs v. United States",
            "citation": "Hobbs v. United States, 376 F.2d 488 (5th Cir. 1967).",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/275633/james-c-hobbs-v-united-states-of-america-atomic-energy-commission/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/275633/james-c-hobbs-v-united-states-of-america-atomic-energy-commission/#:~:text=The%20classic%20shop%20rights%20doctrine,an%20implied%2C%20nonexclusive%2C%20royalty%2Dfree%20license.",
            "proposition": "Hobbs v. United States states the Fifth Circuit's definition of the shop-right doctrine — an implied, nonexclusive, royalty-free license for the employer whose time and tools produced the invention — while finding no shop right on its own facts.",
            "verbatimQuote": "The classic shop rights doctrine ordains that when an employee makes and reduces to practice an invention on his employer’s time, using his employer’s tools and the services of other employees, the employer is the recipient of an implied, nonexclusive, royalty-free license.",
            "date": "1967-04-07",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/louisiana#src-hobbs-shop-right-definition"
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "slug": "holdover-clause-limit",
        "label": "Are post-employment trailing-assignment clauses enforceable?",
        "heading": "Are trailing-assignment (holdover) clauses enforceable in Louisiana?",
        "answerText": "Unsettled. No Louisiana decision found in our review squarely decides whether a trailing clause reaching inventions first conceived after employment ends is enforceable. What Louisiana law does supply is a strictly construed restraint-of-trade statute that nullifies restraints on working, and case law taking invention-assignment and IP-ownership provisions tethered to the employment outside that statute — but the tethered facts of those cases leave a true post-termination holdover clause undecided.",
        "sources": [
          {
            "id": "la-rs-23-921-nullity-holdover",
            "authorityType": "primary-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "La. R.S. 23:921",
            "citation": "La. R.S. 23:921(A)(1).",
            "url": "https://legis.la.gov/Legis/Law.aspx?d=84015",
            "proposition": "La. R.S. 23:921(A)(1) supports the rule that contractual restraints on exercising a lawful profession, trade, or business are null and void in Louisiana except as the statute provides — the recharacterization risk an untethered holdover clause would face.",
            "verbatimQuote": "Every contract or agreement, or provision thereof, by which anyone is restrained from exercising a lawful profession, trade, or business of any kind, except as provided in this Section, shall be null and void.",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/louisiana#src-la-rs-23-921-nullity-holdover"
          },
          {
            "id": "swat24-public-policy",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "SWAT 24 Shreveport Bossier, Inc. v. Bond",
            "citation": "SWAT 24 Shreveport Bossier, Inc. v. Bond, 2000-1695 (La. 6/29/01), 808 So. 2d 294.",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1860745/swat-24-shreveport-bossier-inc-v-bond/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1860745/swat-24-shreveport-bossier-inc-v-bond/#:~:text=Louisiana%20has%20long%20had%20a,agreements%20between%20employers%20and%20employees.",
            "proposition": "SWAT 24 Shreveport Bossier v. Bond states Louisiana's long-standing strong public policy disfavoring noncompetition agreements between employers and employees — the backdrop against which any clause operating as a restraint is read.",
            "verbatimQuote": "Louisiana has long had a strong public policy disfavoring noncompetition agreements between employers and employees.",
            "date": "2001-06-29",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/louisiana#src-swat24-public-policy"
          },
          {
            "id": "swat24-strict-construction",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "SWAT 24 Shreveport Bossier, Inc. v. Bond",
            "citation": "SWAT 24 Shreveport Bossier, Inc. v. Bond, 2000-1695 (La. 6/29/01), 808 So. 2d 294.",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1860745/swat-24-shreveport-bossier-inc-v-bond/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1860745/swat-24-shreveport-bossier-inc-v-bond/#:~:text=Because%20such%20covenants%20are%20in,the%20party%20seeking%20their%20enforcement.",
            "proposition": "SWAT 24 Shreveport Bossier v. Bond holds that covenants restraining work are in derogation of the common right and must be strictly construed against the party seeking enforcement — the interpretive rule an aggressive holdover clause would face if recharacterized as a restraint.",
            "verbatimQuote": "Because such covenants are in derogation of the common right, they must be strictly construed against the party seeking their enforcement.",
            "date": "2001-06-29",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/louisiana#src-swat24-strict-construction"
          },
          {
            "id": "novelaire-callmann-not-noncompete",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "NovelAire Technologies, L.L.C. v. Harrison",
            "citation": "NovelAire Technologies, L.L.C. v. Harrison, 2009-1372 (La. App. 4 Cir. 10/13/10), 50 So. 3d 913 (quoting 2 Louis Altman & Malla Pollack, Callmann on Unfair Competition, Trademarks and Monopolies § 14:17 (4th ed. 2010)).",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/5047586/novelaire-technologies-llc-v-harrison/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/5047586/novelaire-technologies-llc-v-harrison/#:~:text=not%20a%20covenant%20not%20to,to%20covenants%20not%20to%20compete.",
            "proposition": "NovelAire Technologies v. Harrison — quoting the Callmann treatise (§ 14:17) — holds that an employee-invention assignment agreement covering inventions made during the employment is not a covenant not to compete and is not subject to the limitations applicable to non-competes under La. R.S. 23:921.",
            "verbatimQuote": "not a covenant not to compete, does not limit the employee’s post-employment activities except with respect to the affected inventions and improvements, and is not subject to the limitations and requirements applicable to covenants not to compete.",
            "date": "2010-10-13",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/louisiana#src-novelaire-callmann-not-noncompete"
          },
          {
            "id": "cytogel-ip-outside-921",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "United States v. Cytogel Pharma, LLC",
            "citation": "United States v. Cytogel Pharma, LLC, No. 16-13987, 2018 WL 4443152 (E.D. La. Sept. 17, 2018).",
            "url": "https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-laed-2_16-cv-13987/pdf/USCOURTS-laed-2_16-cv-13987-6.pdf",
            "proposition": "United States v. Cytogel Pharma holds that La. R.S. 23:921 does not apply to IP-ownership provisions in a consulting agreement between two sophisticated parties — federal authority taking a tethered IP-ownership clause outside the restraint-of-trade statute.",
            "verbatimQuote": "La. R.S. 23:921 does not apply to contractual provisions in a consulting agreement between two sophisticated parties governing intellectual property ownership.",
            "date": "2018-09-17",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/louisiana#src-cytogel-ip-outside-921"
          },
          {
            "id": "cytogel-erie-guess",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "United States v. Cytogel Pharma, LLC",
            "citation": "United States v. Cytogel Pharma, LLC, No. 16-13987, 2018 WL 4443152 (E.D. La. Sept. 17, 2018).",
            "url": "https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-laed-2_16-cv-13987/pdf/USCOURTS-laed-2_16-cv-13987-6.pdf",
            "proposition": "United States v. Cytogel Pharma is a federal Erie prediction, not state law — the court expressed confidence the Louisiana Supreme Court would agree that the restraint-of-trade statute does not reach the IP-ownership provision, a prediction the Louisiana Supreme Court has not yet confirmed.",
            "verbatimQuote": "The Court is confident the Louisiana Supreme Court would come to the same conclusion.",
            "date": "2018-09-17",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/louisiana#src-cytogel-erie-guess"
          },
          {
            "id": "la-cc-2642-assignability-practice",
            "authorityType": "primary-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "La. Civ. Code art. 2642",
            "citation": "La. Civ. Code art. 2642.",
            "url": "https://legis.la.gov/Legis/Law.aspx?d=109703",
            "proposition": "Civil Code article 2642 supports the rule that under Louisiana law all rights are assignable except those pertaining to strictly personal obligations, so there is no state-law obstacle to a present assignment of future invention rights.",
            "verbatimQuote": "All rights may be assigned, with the exception of those pertaining to obligations that are strictly personal. The assignee is subrogated to the rights of the assignor against the debtor.",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/louisiana#src-la-cc-2642-assignability-practice"
          },
          {
            "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 a Louisiana 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/louisiana#src-stanford-traceback-practice"
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}