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  "data": {
    "topic": "invention-assignment",
    "state": "maryland",
    "frontmatter": {
      "title": "Employee Invention Assignment in Maryland",
      "description": "Maryland 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 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 — the leading authorities are Maryland-forum federal decisions (Houghton, Crown Cork) rather than state appellate holdings — and a post-employment holdover clause would most likely be tested under Maryland's restrictive-covenant reasonableness rule by analogy, with no on-point decision found in our review.",
      "state": "Maryland",
      "lastReviewed": "2026-07-02",
      "license": "CC BY 4.0",
      "authors": [
        "steven-obiajulu"
      ],
      "summary": {
        "bottomLine": "Maryland has no employee-invention-assignment statute — a 2020 bill that would have created a California-style carve-out 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 or notice requirement; absent a written assignment the inventor owns unless hired to invent, a rule the federal courts sitting in Maryland have applied directly, and a post-employment holdover clause would most likely be tested under Maryland's restrictive-covenant reasonableness rule by analogy — no decision found in our review addresses a trailing invention-assignment clause.",
        "keyLaw": "No Maryland invention-assignment statute; Houghton v. United States, 23 F.2d 386 (4th Cir. 1928); MacIntosh v. Brunswick Corp., 241 Md. 24 (1965); Stanford v. Roche, 563 U.S. 776 (2011)",
        "statutoryCarveOut": "none",
        "defaultOwnership": "employee",
        "employeeNoticeRequired": "n/a",
        "holdoverClauseLimit": "unsettled",
        "carveOutScope": "Maryland has no statutory own-time carve-out; 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, both applied by the federal courts sitting in Maryland), and the federal patent and copyright overlay."
      },
      "about": [
        "Maryland invention assignment",
        "Maryland no invention-assignment statute",
        "Maryland employee invention ownership",
        "Houghton v. United States",
        "Crown Cork & Seal Co. v. Fankhanel",
        "MacIntosh v. Brunswick Corp.",
        "Maryland hired to invent",
        "Maryland shop right",
        "Maryland 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 Maryland employer require assignment of every invention?",
        "answerText": "There is no statutory ceiling. Unlike California or Washington, Maryland 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 federal district court in Maryland has enforced a written invention-assignment agreement as an ordinary contract, and the baseline any such clause operates against is that rights in an invention belong to the inventor.",
        "sources": [
          {
            "id": "crown-cork-contract-controls",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "Crown Cork & Seal Co. v. Fankhanel",
            "citation": "Crown Cork & Seal Co. v. Fankhanel, 49 F. Supp. 611 (D. Md. 1943).",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1465945/crown-cork-seal-co-v-fankhanel/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1465945/crown-cork-seal-co-v-fankhanel/#:~:text=an%20invention%20made%20incidentally%20by,transfer%20ownership%20to%20his%20employer",
            "proposition": "Crown Cork & Seal Co. v. Fankhanel — a District of Maryland decision enforcing a written invention-assignment agreement, quoting the Fourth Circuit's adoption of the trial court's formulation — restates that an invention made incidentally in the course of employment is the property of the employee unless he has agreed to transfer ownership to his employer, so in Maryland the reach of an assignment clause is a matter of the contract's words rather than any statutory carve-out.",
            "verbatimQuote": "an invention made incidentally by an employee in the course of his regular or general employment, and at his employer’s expense, is the property of the employee, unless he has agreed, either expressly or impliedly by virtue of some special terms of his employment, to transfer ownership to his employer",
            "date": "1943-03-24",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/maryland#src-crown-cork-contract-controls"
          },
          {
            "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/maryland#src-stanford-baseline"
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "slug": "employee-notice",
        "label": "Must the employer give the employee written notice of the carve-out?",
        "heading": "Must a Maryland employer notify the employee?",
        "answerText": "Not applicable. Because Maryland 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 Maryland enforces instead is contractual: an invention is the employee's property unless the agreement itself transfers it.",
        "sources": [
          {
            "id": "crown-cork-contract-basis",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "Crown Cork & Seal Co. v. Fankhanel",
            "citation": "Crown Cork & Seal Co. v. Fankhanel, 49 F. Supp. 611 (D. Md. 1943).",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1465945/crown-cork-seal-co-v-fankhanel/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1465945/crown-cork-seal-co-v-fankhanel/#:~:text=an%20invention%20made%20incidentally%20by,transfer%20ownership%20to%20his%20employer",
            "proposition": "Crown Cork & Seal Co. v. Fankhanel shows that in Maryland an employee's invention-ownership obligations arise from the agreement itself — an invention made incidentally in the course of employment is the employee's property unless he has agreed to transfer it — not from any statute an employer would have to give notice about.",
            "verbatimQuote": "an invention made incidentally by an employee in the course of his regular or general employment, and at his employer’s expense, is the property of the employee, unless he has agreed, either expressly or impliedly by virtue of some special terms of his employment, to transfer ownership to his employer",
            "date": "1943-03-24",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/maryland#src-crown-cork-contract-basis"
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "slug": "default-ownership",
        "label": "Absent a written assignment, who owns the invention?",
        "heading": "Who owns an invention by default in Maryland?",
        "answerText": "The inventor, unless hired to invent. Absent a written assignment, the baseline under federal patent law is that rights in an invention belong to the employee who conceived it; the narrow exception is the employee hired to invent, and the federal courts sitting in Maryland have applied that exception directly, holding that an employee directed to solve a specific problem is employed to invent as to that project.",
        "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/maryland#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/maryland#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/maryland#src-dubilier-hired-to-invent"
          },
          {
            "id": "houghton-specific-problem",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "Houghton v. United States",
            "citation": "Houghton v. United States, 23 F.2d 386 (4th Cir. 1928).",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1545138/houghton-v-united-states/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1545138/houghton-v-united-states/#:~:text=An%20employee%2C%20who%20undertakes%20upon,in%20the%20contract%20of%20employment.",
            "proposition": "Houghton v. United States — the Fourth Circuit, affirming the District of Maryland and adopting the trial court's statement as the correct rule — holds that an employee who undertakes at the employer's direction to solve a specific problem within the scope of a general employment is employed and paid for that project as if it had been named in the contract of employment, so the hired-to-invent duty reaches directed projects, not only employees hired as inventors.",
            "verbatimQuote": "An employee, who undertakes upon the direction of his employer to solve a specific problem within the scope of his general employment, is as truly employed and paid for the particular project as if it had been described at the outset in the contract of employment.",
            "date": "1928-01-10",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/maryland#src-houghton-specific-problem"
          },
          {
            "id": "houghton-employed-to-invent",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "Houghton v. United States",
            "citation": "Houghton v. United States, 23 F.2d 386 (4th Cir. 1928).",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1545138/houghton-v-united-states/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1545138/houghton-v-united-states/#:~:text=During%20the%20period%20that%20he,efforts%20in%20any%20other%20direction.",
            "proposition": "Houghton v. United States holds that while an employee is engaged on a problem the employer directed him to solve, he is employed to invent, and the results of his efforts at invention belong to the employer.",
            "verbatimQuote": "During the period that he is so engaged, he is “employed to invent,” and the results of his efforts at invention belong to his employer in the same way as would the product of his efforts in any other direction.",
            "date": "1928-01-10",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/maryland#src-houghton-employed-to-invent"
          },
          {
            "id": "dubilier-shop-right",
            "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=Recognition%20of%20the%20nature%20of,right%20to%20practice%20the%20invention.",
            "proposition": "United States v. Dubilier Condenser Corp. defines the limits of the shop right — where an employee uses the employer's time, materials, and appliances to conceive and perfect a patented invention, the employer is owed a non-exclusive right to practice the invention, not ownership of it.",
            "verbatimQuote": "Recognition of the nature of the act of invention also defines the limits of the so-called shop-right, which shortly stated, is that where a servant, during his hours of employment, working with his master's materials and appliances, conceives and perfects an invention for which he obtains a patent, he must accord his master a non-exclusive right to practice the invention.",
            "date": "1933-05-08",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/maryland#src-dubilier-shop-right"
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "slug": "holdover-clause-limit",
        "label": "Are post-employment trailing-assignment clauses enforceable?",
        "heading": "Are trailing-assignment (holdover) clauses enforceable in Maryland?",
        "answerText": "Most likely only if reasonable — by analogy, not holding. No Maryland decision found in our review addresses a trailing clause reaching inventions first conceived after employment ends, and there is no statutory temporal cap because there is no invention-assignment statute at all. What Maryland does have is a canonical reasonableness rule for restraints arising out of employment, and a court asked to police an aggressive holdover clause would most likely test it within that framework.",
        "sources": [
          {
            "id": "macintosh-reasonableness",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "MacIntosh v. Brunswick Corp.",
            "citation": "MacIntosh v. Brunswick Corp., 241 Md. 24, 215 A.2d 222 (1965).",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2093884/macintosh-v-brunswick-corp/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2093884/macintosh-v-brunswick-corp/#:~:text=The%20general%20rule%20in%20Maryland,the%20interests%20of%20the%20public.%E2%80%9D",
            "proposition": "MacIntosh v. Brunswick Corp. states Maryland's general rule — quoting Silver v. Goldberger — that a restrictive covenant in an employment contract will be sustained only if the restraint is confined within limits no wider as to area and duration than reasonably necessary to protect the employer's business, without undue hardship on the employee or disregard of the public interest; the framework a Maryland court would most likely apply by analogy to a post-employment trailing invention-assignment clause.",
            "verbatimQuote": "The general rule in Maryland is that restrictive covenants in a contract of employment, by which an employee as a part of his agreement undertakes not to engage in a competing business or vocation with that of his employer on leaving the employment, will be sustained “if the restraint is confined within limits which are no wider as to area and duration than are reasonably necessary for the protection of the business of the employer and do not impose undue hardship on the employee or disregard the interests of the public.”",
            "date": "1965-12-20",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/maryland#src-macintosh-reasonableness"
          },
          {
            "id": "crown-cork-contract-controls-practice",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "Crown Cork & Seal Co. v. Fankhanel",
            "citation": "Crown Cork & Seal Co. v. Fankhanel, 49 F. Supp. 611 (D. Md. 1943).",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1465945/crown-cork-seal-co-v-fankhanel/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1465945/crown-cork-seal-co-v-fankhanel/#:~:text=an%20invention%20made%20incidentally%20by,transfer%20ownership%20to%20his%20employer",
            "proposition": "Crown Cork & Seal Co. v. Fankhanel — a District of Maryland decision enforcing a written invention-assignment agreement, quoting the Fourth Circuit's adoption of the trial court's formulation — restates that an invention made incidentally in the course of employment is the property of the employee unless he has agreed to transfer ownership to his employer, so in Maryland the reach of an assignment clause is a matter of the contract's words rather than any statutory carve-out.",
            "verbatimQuote": "an invention made incidentally by an employee in the course of his regular or general employment, and at his employer’s expense, is the property of the employee, unless he has agreed, either expressly or impliedly by virtue of some special terms of his employment, to transfer ownership to his employer",
            "date": "1943-03-24",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/maryland#src-crown-cork-contract-controls-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 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/maryland#src-stanford-traceback-practice"
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}