Can a Nevada employer require assignment of every invention?
Nevada is unusual: there is no §2870-style employee carve-out. To the contrary, NRS 600.500 makes the employer the default owner of an employee's in-scope patentable inventions and trade secrets, absent an express written agreement. So a Nevada employer starts from an ownership position, not a carve-out limit .
The statute vests ownership in the employer by operation of law. However the contract is written, the baseline for a patentable invention or trade secret an employee develops in the course and scope of the work is that the employer already owns it .
Because the default runs in the employer's favor, contractual expansion to reach off-scope inventions — an employee's own-time, unrelated work — is a matter of ordinary contract, not a statutory prohibition. Unlike California, where Labor Code §2870 voids an assignment clause that overreaches an own-time invention, Nevada has no IP-specific labor-code ceiling: an overbroad clause is limited only by general contract defenses and, for post-employment reach, by the restrictive-covenant statute discussed below (see Q4).
Sources for this answer
Primary law
A.1 Nev. Rev. Stat. § 600.500NRS 600.500 makes the employer the sole owner, absent an express written agreement, of any patentable invention or trade secret the employee develops in the course and scope of employment that relates directly to the work performed — an employer-ownership default that inverts the Section 2870 model.
Except as otherwise provided by express written agreement, an employer is the sole owner of any patentable invention or trade secret developed by his or her employee during the course and scope of the employment that relates directly to work performed during the course and scope of the employment.
See Nev. Rev. Stat. § 600.500.
Must a Nevada employer notify the employee?
No. NRS 600.500 vests ownership in the employer by operation of law and imposes no notice, disclosure, or burden-shifting requirement of any kind — the sharp contrast with California, which requires a written notice under Labor Code § 2872, and Washington, which requires one under RCW 49.44.140(3). Because the statute grants the employer default ownership rather than protecting an employee carve-out, there is nothing the employer must notify the employee about .
The transfer is unconditional on its face: the employer is the owner of an in-scope patentable invention or trade secret, and the statute never ties that ownership to any warning given to the employee .
As a matter of practice, a sophisticated confidential-information-and-invention-assignment agreement will still collect a prior-inventions schedule to fix a clean chain of title, but that is drafting hygiene, not a Nevada legal requirement.
Sources for this answer
Primary law
B.1 Nev. Rev. Stat. § 600.500NRS 600.500 vests ownership in the employer by operation of law, without conditioning that transfer on any notice to, or disclosure by, the employee — Nevada imposes no statutory invention-assignment notice requirement.
Except as otherwise provided by express written agreement, an employer is the sole owner of any patentable invention or trade secret developed by his or her employee during the course and scope of the employment that relates directly to work performed during the course and scope of the employment.
See Nev. Rev. Stat. § 600.500.
Who owns an invention by default in Nevada?
The employer, by statute — the inverse of the general rule. Federal patent law's baseline is still that rights begin with the inventor, as the U.S. Supreme Court restated in Stanford v. Roche, but NRS 600.500 supplies the state-law transfer, vesting title in the employer for in-scope inventions and displacing the common-law hired-to-invent and shop-right doctrines.
Where most states leave the inventor holding title until a written assignment moves it, Nevada reverses the starting point. For a patentable invention or trade secret developed in the course and scope of the work, the employer is the statutory owner from the outset .
That state-law default does not, however, make a written assignment optional. Federal patent title still traces back to the inventor, so a clean, USPTO-recognized chain of title runs through the employee-inventor. Stanford v. Roche anchors that premise .
Because ownership starts with the inventor, any employer interest must trace back to that inventor-grantor .
The practical upshot is that a Nevada employer should not rely on NRS 600.500 alone. Federal patent law vests initial title in the human inventor, and it recognizes a transfer of legal title through a written instrument rather than a state ownership statute — so a written present-tense assignment (does hereby assign — the Stanford mechanics that transfer legal title automatically on conception) remains strongly advisable to secure a clean, recordable chain of title and avoid the defects that surface in patent litigation or M&A due diligence. The statute also reaches only patentable inventions and trade secrets, not copyrightable work or unpatentable know-how.
Sources for this answer
Primary law
C.1 Nev. Rev. Stat. § 600.500Under NRS 600.500 the employer is the default owner of an employee's in-scope patentable invention or trade secret, displacing the common-law rule that an invention belongs to the inventor absent an assignment.
Except as otherwise provided by express written agreement, an employer is the sole owner of any patentable invention or trade secret developed by his or her employee during the course and scope of the employment that relates directly to work performed during the course and scope of the employment.
See Nev. Rev. Stat. § 600.500.
Case law · 2011-06-06
C.2 Bd. of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior Univ. v. Roche Molecular SystemsStanford v. Roche confirms the long-standing premise of U.S. patent law that rights in an invention belong to the inventor.
Since 1790, the patent law has operated on the premise that rights in an invention belong to the inventor.
See Bd. of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior Univ. v. Roche Molecular Sys., Inc., 563 U.S. 776 (2011).
Case law · 2011-06-06
C.3 Bd. of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior Univ. v. Roche Molecular SystemsStanford 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 — the federal patent-law baseline for a clean chain of title, which a written present assignment secures alongside Nevada's statutory employer-ownership default.
Thus, although others may acquire an interest in an invention, any such interest — as a general rule — must trace back to the inventor.
See Bd. of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior Univ. v. Roche Molecular Sys., Inc., 563 U.S. 776 (2011).
Are trailing-assignment (holdover) clauses enforceable in Nevada?
Only so far as reasonable. A post-employment trailing clause restrains a former employee's mobility, so a Nevada court would most likely analyze it the way it analyzes any post-employment restraint — under the restrictive-covenant statute, NRS 613.195: a covenant is void unless it is supported by consideration, no greater than required to protect the employer, and imposes no undue hardship; an overbroad covenant must be judicially blue-penciled to a reasonable scope; and a covenant may not apply at all to an employee paid solely on an hourly-wage basis.
Nevada's noncompetition statute states the reasonableness framework directly, voiding any covenant that lacks consideration, sweeps broader than the employer's protectable interest, imposes undue hardship, or is disproportionate to the consideration behind it .
The statute is harsher still for the lowest-paid workers: a noncompetition covenant simply cannot reach an employee paid solely on an hourly wage .
Two hedges are warranted. First, no published Nevada decision squarely applies NRS 613.195 to an invention holdover clause, so the analogy — that a trailing-assignment tail functions as a de facto restraint on mobility and is policed accordingly — is a reasoned prediction rather than settled law. Second, treat an aggressive trailing tail as high-risk: overbroad, it must be blue-penciled down; and against an hourly-wage worker it risks being void entirely.
Sources for this answer
Primary law
D.1 Nev. Rev. Stat. § 613.195NRS 613.195(1) makes a noncompetition covenant void and unenforceable unless it is supported by valuable consideration, imposes no restraint greater than required to protect the employer, imposes no undue hardship on the employee, and is appropriate in relation to the consideration — the reasonableness framework Nevada courts apply to post-employment noncompetition covenants, and the framework under which a trailing-assignment clause that restrains a former employee's mobility would most likely be analyzed by analogy (no published Nevada decision squarely applies it to an invention holdover).
A noncompetition covenant is void and unenforceable unless the noncompetition covenant: (a) Is supported by valuable consideration; (b) Does not impose any restraint that is greater than is required for the protection of the employer for whose benefit the restraint is imposed; (c) Does not impose any undue hardship on the employee; and (d) Imposes restrictions that are appropriate in relation to the valuable consideration supporting the noncompetition covenant.
See Nev. Rev. Stat. § 613.195(1).
Primary law
D.2 Nev. Rev. Stat. § 613.195NRS 613.195(3) bars a noncompetition covenant from applying to an employee paid solely on an hourly-wage basis — so if a trailing-assignment clause is treated, by analogy, as a de facto non-compete against an hourly worker, it risks being void entirely.
A noncompetition covenant may not apply to an employee who is paid solely on an hourly wage basis, exclusive of any tips or gratuities.
See Nev. Rev. Stat. § 613.195(3).
Do not assume NRS 600.500's employer-ownership default does all the work. The statute reaches only patentable inventions and trade secrets developed in the course and scope of employment — not copyright, unpatentable know-how, or off-scope inventions — so a clean federal patent chain of title still needs a present-tense does hereby assign clause that traces title from the inventor. And a post-employment holdover tail would most likely be analyzed — and blue-penciled — as a restrictive covenant under NRS 613.195, which cannot reach hourly-wage workers at all, so keep any trailing assignment narrow and do not extend it to employees paid solely on an hourly basis.