# Employee Invention Assignment in New Hampshire[^about] New Hampshire 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. RSA 275:70 requires pre-hire disclosure of noncompete agreements while expressly preserving intellectual-property-assignment provisions. Absent a written assignment the inventor owns unless hired to invent under Vigitron, Inc. v. Ferguson, and a post-employment holdover clause would most likely be judged under New Hampshire's general three-prong reasonableness test for restraints on employment. ## Can a New Hampshire employer require assignment of every invention? {#statutory-carve-out} **Short answer.** There is no statutory ceiling. New Hampshire has no employee-invention-assignment statute — nothing like California Labor Code § 2870 that voids the 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 closest statute, RSA 275:70, regulates noncompete disclosure and by its own text leaves intellectual-property-assignment provisions untouched, and the baseline all of this operates against is that rights in an invention belong to the inventor [^rsa-275-70-preserves-ip-assignment][^stanford-baseline]. Because there is no statute on point, the limits come from general principles rather than a legislative carve-out. A full-text review of the New Hampshire Revised Statutes Annotated surfaces no invention-, patent-, or intellectual-property-assignment provision — no § 2870-style own-time carve-out, no employer-ownership statute, and nothing in RSA Chapter 275 (Protective Legislation) that regulates what an employment invention-assignment clause may reach. A New Hampshire employer therefore starts from contract law, not a statutory ceiling on what an assignment promise may capture. The legislature's one nearby enactment shows it knows the difference between restraint types. RSA 275:70 conditions noncompete agreements on pre-hire disclosure, and in the same breath it expressly insulates invention-assignment clauses from that regime [^rsa-275-70-preserves-ip-assignment]. "all other provisions of any employment, confidentiality, nondisclosure, trade secret, intellectual property assignment, or any other type of employment agreement or provision shall remain in full force and effect"[^rsa-275-70-preserves-ip-assignment] The substantive default that New Hampshire 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 a New Hampshire employer can, in principle, contract for assignment more broadly than a California or Washington employer, because no statute carves out own-time inventions from the reach of the clause. But that breadth is not unlimited: an assignment clause is still an ordinary contract term, subject to general contract-law defenses and, where it functions as a restraint on the employee, to New Hampshire's reasonableness limits on restraints arising out of employment. There is simply no statutory own-time safe harbor for the employee to invoke and no statutory ceiling for the drafter to code around. ## Must a New Hampshire employer notify the employee? {#employee-notice} **Short answer.** Not applicable. Because New Hampshire 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). The one nearby notice statute points the other way: RSA 275:70 requires an employer to disclose a noncompete agreement before the employee accepts the offer, and by its own text it leaves intellectual-property-assignment provisions in full force and effect [^rsa-275-70-notice-scope]. 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; New Hampshire 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 New Hampshire does not have. The instructive wrinkle is that New Hampshire does have a pre-hire disclosure statute — just not for invention assignments. RSA 275:70 makes an undisclosed noncompete agreement unenforceable, and the legislature drew the boundary of that disclosure duty deliberately, expressly preserving every other kind of employment provision, invention assignments included [^rsa-275-70-notice-scope]. "all other provisions of any employment, confidentiality, nondisclosure, trade secret, intellectual property assignment, or any other type of employment agreement or provision shall remain in full force and effect"[^rsa-275-70-notice-scope] For a multistate employer the takeaway is the inverse of the notice states: a New Hampshire employer neither has to give a § 2872-style invention-assignment notice nor can rely on one to cure an overbroad clause. The enforceability of the assignment turns on the contract language and the general limits on restraints, not on any statutory notice formality. ## Who owns an invention by default in New Hampshire? {#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 New Hampshire as elsewhere — is that rights belong to the employee who conceived it. New Hampshire's own leading case, *Vigitron, Inc. v. Ferguson*, adopts the hired-to-invent exception, under which the product of an employee engaged to invent or to develop a particular product belongs to the employer even without a written contract to assign [^stanford-inventor][^vigitron-hired-to-invent]. *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] 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] New Hampshire adopted that framework in *Vigitron, Inc. v. Ferguson*, a dispute over a competing electronic control device — the Ultra 100 — designed and prototyped by a departing Vigitron employee, Weeden, after he and others formed a rival venture. Relying on *Dubilier*, the New Hampshire Supreme Court stated the rule as one about what the employee was engaged to do: the product of one who is hired to invent [^vigitron-hired-to-invent] — "accomplish a prescribed result, or aid in the development of products belongs to the employer in the absence of a written contract to assign."[^vigitron-hired-to-invent] Short of hired-to-invent facts, the employer's fallback under *Dubilier* is the equitable shop right — a limited license to use the invention, not ownership of it — where the employee used the employer's time, tools, and materials. *Vigitron* polices the boundary between the two doctrines: the shop right is available only when the employee was not engaged to develop the very product at issue [^vigitron-shop-right]. "A precondition for the application of the ‘shop right’ rule is that the employee not be hired for the purpose of developing the product in question."[^vigitron-shop-right] Two features of *Vigitron* are worth keeping distinct. The ownership holding rode on hired-to-invent facts — the court asked what Weeden had been engaged to do. The injunctive relief in the case rested on a different rationale, breach of the employees' confidential relationship with their employer, not on the ownership rule itself. Because ownership starts with the inventor and New Hampshire has no statute filling the gap, the dependable path for an employer that cannot count on hired-to-invent facts 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. ## Are trailing-assignment (holdover) clauses enforceable in New Hampshire? {#holdover-clause-limit} **Short answer.** The question is unsettled — reasonableness is the likely framework, by analogy rather than holding. New Hampshire has no invention-assignment statute, so nothing caps the duration or reach of a post-employment trailing clause, and no New Hampshire decision found in our review has squarely decided whether such a clause is enforceable. What New Hampshire does have is a canonical, well-developed reasonableness test for restraints arising out of employment, and a court asked to enforce an aggressive holdover clause that functions as a restraint would most likely measure it against that three-prong standard [^concord-three-prong]. Two gaps define the New Hampshire 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 New Hampshire decision applying the reasonableness limits specifically to an invention-holdover clause, so the invention-specific application of the rule is a prediction rather than settled law. What New Hampshire does supply is a general reasonableness standard for restraints growing out of the employment relationship. In *Concord Orthopaedics Professional Ass'n v. Forbes*, the New Hampshire Supreme Court restated the test, quoting its earlier formulation in *Moore v. Dover Veterinary Hospital* [^concord-three-prong]. "A restraint on employment is reasonable only if it is no greater than necessary for the protection of the employer’s legitimate interest, does not impose undue hardship on the employee, and is not injurious to the public"[^concord-three-prong] The third prong asks whether the restraint harms the public interest, and the test is conjunctive: a restraint that fails any single prong falls [^concord-one-prong-fails]. "If the covenant fails one prong, the covenant is unenforceable."[^concord-one-prong-fails] Extending that framework to holdover assignments is a prediction, not a holding. A New Hampshire court asked to enforce a clause that sweeps in inventions an ex-employee conceives after leaving would most likely ask whether the restriction is no greater than necessary to protect the employer's legitimate interests — its trade secrets and confidential information — whether it unduly burdens the former employee's ability to work in the field, and whether it injures the public. A trailing clause tied to inventions derived from the employer's confidential information, limited to a short window, fits that framework far better than an open-ended claim to everything a former employee conceives. Out-of-state authority voiding open-ended post-employment invention assignments applies other states' law and is at most analogous; it is not New Hampshire law. The safe reading is that an overbroad trailer clause is at meaningful risk in New Hampshire, but the precise standard for invention holdovers has not been decided. > [!NOTE] > **Practice note.** > > Do not treat the absence of a statute as a green light. New Hampshire has no invention-assignment statute, so there is no statutory carve-out to draft around and no notice safe harbor — the validity of the assignment turns on the contract language, and because ownership starts with the inventor, an employer's rights are only as good as the words that transfer them; draft with present-assignment (*hereby assigns*) language so title passes automatically rather than resting on a future promise [^stanford-traceback-practice]. Keep any trailing or holdover assignment narrow, short, and tied to the employer's confidential information, because no New Hampshire decision found in our review has passed on one and an overbroad clause risks being struck under the state's conjunctive three-prong reasonableness test for restraints on employment [^concord-three-prong]. And because RSA 275:70 makes undisclosed noncompete agreements unenforceable, disclose any aggressive holdover clause with the offer rather than after acceptance — cheap insurance against the untested argument that the clause is a de facto restraint requiring pre-hire disclosure [^rsa-275-70-disclosure-practice]. [^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 New Hampshire. This article synthesizes New Hampshire primary law and is not legal advice from a New Hampshire-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 New Hampshire*, OpenAgreements (last updated July 2, 2026), https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/new-hampshire. [^rsa-275-70-preserves-ip-assignment]: **N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 275:70 (Noncompete Agreements)** — "all other provisions of any employment, confidentiality, nondisclosure, trade secret, intellectual property assignment, or any other type of employment agreement or provision shall remain in full force and effect" *N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 275:70.* [^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).* [^rsa-275-70-notice-scope]: **N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 275:70 (Noncompete Agreements)** — "all other provisions of any employment, confidentiality, nondisclosure, trade secret, intellectual property assignment, or any other type of employment agreement or provision shall remain in full force and effect" *N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 275:70.* [^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).* [^vigitron-hired-to-invent]: **Vigitron, Inc. v. Ferguson** — "accomplish a prescribed result, or aid in the development of products belongs to the employer in the absence of a written contract to assign." *Vigitron, Inc. v. Ferguson, 120 N.H. 626, 629-30, 419 A.2d 1115 (1980) (citing United States v. Dubilier Condenser Corp., 289 U.S. 178 (1933)).* [^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).* [^vigitron-shop-right]: **Vigitron, Inc. v. Ferguson** — "A precondition for the application of the ‘shop right’ rule is that the employee not be hired for the purpose of developing the product in question." *Vigitron, Inc. v. Ferguson, 120 N.H. 626, 631, 419 A.2d 1115 (1980).* [^concord-three-prong]: **Concord Orthopaedics Professional Ass'n v. Forbes** — "A restraint on employment is reasonable only if it is no greater than necessary for the protection of the employer’s legitimate interest, does not impose undue hardship on the employee, and is not injurious to the public" *Concord Orthopaedics Prof'l Ass'n v. Forbes, 142 N.H. 440, 442-43, 702 A.2d 1273 (1997) (quoting Moore v. Dover Veterinary Hosp., Inc., 116 N.H. 680, 684, 367 A.2d 1044 (1976) (per curiam)).* [^concord-one-prong-fails]: **Concord Orthopaedics Professional Ass'n v. Forbes** — "If the covenant fails one prong, the covenant is unenforceable." *Concord Orthopaedics Prof'l Ass'n v. Forbes, 142 N.H. 440, 443, 702 A.2d 1273 (1997) (citing Technical Aid Corp. v. Allen, 134 N.H. 1, 8, 591 A.2d 262 (1991)).* [^stanford-traceback-practice]: **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).* [^rsa-275-70-disclosure-practice]: **N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 275:70 (Noncompete Agreements)** — "all other provisions of any employment, confidentiality, nondisclosure, trade secret, intellectual property assignment, or any other type of employment agreement or provision shall remain in full force and effect" *N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 275:70.*