{ "type": "practice-guide", "canonical": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/mississippi", "links": [ { "rel": "self", "href": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/mississippi.json", "type": "application/json" }, { "rel": "alternate", "href": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/mississippi", "type": "text/html" }, { "rel": "alternate", "href": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/mississippi/markdown", "type": "text/markdown" }, { "rel": "alternate", "href": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/mississippi/json", "type": "application/json" } ], "data": { "topic": "invention-assignment", "state": "mississippi", "frontmatter": { "title": "Employee Invention Assignment in Mississippi", "description": "Mississippi has no employee-invention-assignment statute and no Mississippi appellate decision found in our review construes such a clause on the merits, 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, and the enforceability of a post-employment holdover clause is unsettled — no Mississippi authority found in our review, and even the covenant-reasonableness analogy from Redd Pest Control v. Heatherly is untested for invention holdovers.", "state": "Mississippi", "lastReviewed": "2026-07-03", "license": "CC BY 4.0", "authors": [ "steven-obiajulu" ], "summary": { "bottomLine": "Mississippi has no employee-invention-assignment statute and no Mississippi appellate decision found in our review construes such a clause on the merits, 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, and the enforceability of a post-employment holdover clause is unsettled — no Mississippi authority found in our review, no restrictive-covenant statute exists to reach it, and even the covenant-reasonableness analogy from Redd Pest Control v. Heatherly is untested for invention holdovers.", "keyLaw": "No Mississippi invention-assignment statute; American Elec. v. Singarayar, 530 So. 2d 1319 (Miss. 1988) (interlocutory only); Stanford v. Roche, 563 U.S. 776 (2011)", "statutoryCarveOut": "none", "defaultOwnership": "employee", "employeeNoticeRequired": "n/a", "holdoverClauseLimit": "unsettled", "carveOutScope": "Mississippi 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 federal hired-to-invent and shop-right doctrines, which no Mississippi appellate decision found in our review has articulated), and the federal patent and copyright overlay." }, "about": [ "Mississippi invention assignment", "Mississippi no invention-assignment statute", "Mississippi employee invention ownership", "American Electric v. Singarayar", "Mississippi hired to invent", "Mississippi shop right", "Mississippi holdover trailing assignment", "Redd Pest Control v. Heatherly reasonableness" ], "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 Mississippi employer require assignment of every invention?", "answerText": "There is no statutory ceiling. Unlike California or New York, Mississippi 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. No Mississippi appellate decision found in our review construes such a clause on the merits either — the one Supreme Court of Mississippi case in which an employee invention-assignment agreement figures decided only a procedural question — and the baseline any contract operates against is that rights in an invention belong to the inventor.", "sources": [ { "id": "singarayar-agreement", "authorityType": "case-law", "tier": "primary-source-backed", "title": "American Elec., a Div. of FL Industries v. Singarayar", "citation": "American Elec., a Div. of FL Industries v. Singarayar, 530 So. 2d 1319 (Miss. 1988).", "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1679004/american-elec-v-singarayar/", "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1679004/american-elec-v-singarayar/#:~:text=On%20that%20date%20he%20signed,agreement%20contained%20no%20non%2Dcompetition%20clause.", "proposition": "American Elec. v. Singarayar is the one Supreme Court of Mississippi decision found in our review in which an employee invention-assignment agreement figures — the opinion records the agreement as an ordinary contract instrument, and the court decided only that interlocutory review of the trial court's preliminary injunction was unwarranted, so no Mississippi merits construction of such a clause exists and no statutory ceiling limits its reach.", "verbatimQuote": "On that date he signed an \"Agreement for Assignment of Inventions and Covenant Against Disclosure\" (hereinafter \"employment agreement\"). The employment agreement contained no non-competition clause.", "date": "1988-06-03", "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/mississippi#src-singarayar-agreement" }, { "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/mississippi#src-stanford-baseline" } ] }, { "slug": "employee-notice", "label": "Must the employer give the employee written notice of the carve-out?", "heading": "Must a Mississippi employer notify the employee?", "answerText": "Not applicable. Because Mississippi 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). Whatever invention-assignment duties bind a Mississippi employee arise from the contract itself — the one Supreme Court of Mississippi case featuring such an agreement records it as a purely contractual instrument, with no statutory apparatus attached.", "sources": [ { "id": "singarayar-contract-instrument", "authorityType": "case-law", "tier": "primary-source-backed", "title": "American Elec., a Div. of FL Industries v. Singarayar", "citation": "American Elec., a Div. of FL Industries v. Singarayar, 530 So. 2d 1319 (Miss. 1988).", "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1679004/american-elec-v-singarayar/", "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1679004/american-elec-v-singarayar/#:~:text=On%20that%20date%20he%20signed,agreement%20contained%20no%20non%2Dcompetition%20clause.", "proposition": "American Elec. v. Singarayar shows that in Mississippi an employee's invention-assignment and nondisclosure duties arise from the signed agreement itself — the opinion records the instrument as an ordinary contract, and no statutory notice or disclosure formality figures in the case — so there is no notice requirement for an invention-assignment clause in Mississippi.", "verbatimQuote": "On that date he signed an \"Agreement for Assignment of Inventions and Covenant Against Disclosure\" (hereinafter \"employment agreement\"). The employment agreement contained no non-competition clause.", "date": "1988-06-03", "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/mississippi#src-singarayar-contract-instrument" } ] }, { "slug": "default-ownership", "label": "Absent a written assignment, who owns the invention?", "heading": "Who owns an invention by default in Mississippi?", "answerText": "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 Mississippi as elsewhere — is that rights belong to the employee who conceived it. The narrow exception is the employee hired to invent, whose resulting invention the employer may claim; short of that, the employer's default remedy is a shop right, a royalty-free license to use the invention, never title. No Mississippi appellate decision found in our review has articulated any of these doctrines, so the federal formulations are what a Mississippi court would most likely consult.", "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/mississippi#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/mississippi#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/mississippi#src-dubilier-hired-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. states the classic shop-right rule — an employee who conceives and perfects an invention on the employer's time with the employer's materials must accord the employer 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/mississippi#src-dubilier-shop-right" }, { "id": "wommack-shop-right", "authorityType": "case-law", "tier": "primary-source-backed", "title": "Wommack v. Durham Pecan Co.", "citation": "Wommack v. Durham Pecan Co., 715 F.2d 962 (5th Cir. 1983).", "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/423930/wommack-v-durham-pecan-co/", "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/423930/wommack-v-durham-pecan-co/#:~:text=As%20commonly%20stated%2C%20a%20shop,the%20employer%E2%80%99s%20property%20or%20labor.", "proposition": "Wommack v. Durham Pecan Co., the leading Fifth Circuit shop-right case, states the standard formulation that a shop right is found where the invention was developed on the employer's time or with the assistance of the employer's property or labor — a Texas-origin appeal that is persuasive in-circuit color for Mississippi, not Mississippi law.", "verbatimQuote": "As commonly stated, a shop right will be found where the employer shows that the invention was developed by his employee during the employer’s time or with the assistance of the employer’s property or labor.", "date": "1983-09-26", "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/mississippi#src-wommack-shop-right" } ] }, { "slug": "holdover-clause-limit", "label": "Are post-employment trailing-assignment clauses enforceable?", "heading": "Are trailing-assignment (holdover) clauses enforceable in Mississippi?", "answerText": "Unsettled. Mississippi has no statute that could cap a trailing clause — there is no invention-assignment statute, and no restrictive-covenant statute of any kind, because covenant enforceability in Mississippi is entirely judge-made — and no Mississippi decision found in our review addresses a post-employment invention-assignment clause. Even the threshold question of whether a trailing assignment is a restraint subject to covenant reasonableness is undecided here. A Mississippi court asked to police an aggressive holdover would most likely reach for its judge-made covenant framework — enforce to the extent reasonable, in service of a legitimate business interest — but that is a prediction from an untested analogy, not a holding.", "sources": [ { "id": "redd-enforce-to-extent-reasonable", "authorityType": "case-law", "tier": "primary-source-backed", "title": "Redd Pest Control Co. v. Heatherly", "citation": "Redd Pest Control Co. v. Heatherly, 248 Miss. 34, 157 So. 2d 133 (Miss. 1963).", "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1851641/redd-pest-control-co-v-heatherly/", "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1851641/redd-pest-control-co-v-heatherly/#:~:text=There%20is%20no%20sound%20reason,protects%20a%20legitimate%20business%20interest.", "proposition": "Redd Pest Control Co. v. Heatherly supports Mississippi's judge-made covenant rule that a restrictive covenant protecting a legitimate business interest is enforced to the extent it is reasonable — the partial-enforcement framework a Mississippi court would most likely consult, by untested analogy, if asked to police a trailing invention-assignment clause.", "verbatimQuote": "There is no sound reason why the contract should not be enforced to the extent that it is reasonable since it protects a legitimate business interest.", "date": "1963-11-04", "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/mississippi#src-redd-enforce-to-extent-reasonable" }, { "id": "redd-customer-relationships", "authorityType": "case-law", "tier": "primary-source-backed", "title": "Redd Pest Control Co. v. Heatherly", "citation": "Redd Pest Control Co. v. Heatherly, 248 Miss. 34, 157 So. 2d 133 (Miss. 1963).", "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1851641/redd-pest-control-co-v-heatherly/", "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1851641/redd-pest-control-co-v-heatherly/#:~:text=The%20volume%20of%20cases%20involving,relationships%20with%20the%20employer%E2%80%99s%20customers.", "proposition": "Redd Pest Control Co. v. Heatherly grounds Mississippi covenant enforcement in protecting the employer's legitimate business interests from the peculiar knowledge and relationships a former employee carries away — the interest-protection rationale any reasonableness testing of an invention-holdover clause in Mississippi would run on.", "verbatimQuote": "The volume of cases involving employee restraints based on customer relationships indicates quite clearly that business enterprises recognize the desirability, even necessity, of protecting the business from loss of customers by the activities of former employees who have peculiar knowledge of and relationships with the employer’s customers.", "date": "1963-11-04", "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/mississippi#src-redd-customer-relationships" }, { "id": "singarayar-bifurcated", "authorityType": "case-law", "tier": "primary-source-backed", "title": "American Elec., a Div. of FL Industries v. Singarayar", "citation": "American Elec., a Div. of FL Industries v. Singarayar, 530 So. 2d 1319 (Miss. 1988).", "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1679004/american-elec-v-singarayar/", "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1679004/american-elec-v-singarayar/#:~:text=Thereafter%2C%20on%20March%2025%2C%201988%2C,of%20which%20he%20had%20custody.", "proposition": "American Elec. v. Singarayar records the closest Mississippi-native fact pattern — a trial court restrained an ex-employee who had signed an invention-assignment and nondisclosure agreement from using the employer's trade secrets while declining to bar his new employment, and the Supreme Court of Mississippi left that preliminary order in place solely because interlocutory review was unwarranted — an illustration of how such a dispute was litigated, not a merits precedent on holdover or assignment enforcement.", "verbatimQuote": "Thereafter, on March 25, 1988, the Circuit Court entered an order in essence restraining Singarayar, preliminary to disposition of the action on its merits, from disclosure or other use of American Electric's trade secrets and other proprietary information and ordering that Singarayar return to American Electric all property of American Electric of which he had custody.", "date": "1988-06-03", "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/mississippi#src-singarayar-bifurcated" }, { "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/mississippi#src-stanford-traceback-practice" } ] } ] } }