# Employee Invention Assignment in Oklahoma[^about] Oklahoma has no employee-invention-assignment statute in either direction — no California-style own-time carve-out or notice duty, and no employer-acquisition default. Under Amoco Production Co. v. Lindley an employee's invention remains the employee's absent an express or implied agreement, and an undefined contractual invention captures only patentable subject matter; the hired-to-invent exception operates as Oklahoma implied-in-fact contract law under Skycam, LLC v. Bennett, and a post-employment holdover clause that functions as a restraint faces outright voidness under 15 O.S. § 217 rather than reasonableness balancing. ## Can an Oklahoma employer require assignment of every invention? {#statutory-carve-out} **Short answer.** There is no statutory ceiling — and no statute pointing the other way either. Oklahoma has no employee-invention-assignment statute of any kind: no §2870-style carve-out protecting an employee's own-time, own-resource inventions, and no employer-acquisition default vesting work product in the employer. The reach of an assignment clause is a matter of ordinary contract law, and the Oklahoma Supreme Court construes that reach narrowly — under *Amoco Production Co. v. Lindley*, an undefined contractual invention captures only patentable subject matter [^amoco-invention-patentable][^amoco-software-outside-contract]. The statutory silence runs in both directions. Neither the labor title nor the contracts title of the Oklahoma Statutes contains an employee-invention-assignment provision, and the only statute in the code addressing inventions at all — the Invention Development Services Act, 15 O.S. §§ 680–689 — is a consumer-protection law regulating invention-promotion firms that sell development and marketing services to inventors; it says nothing about employment. Oklahoma's contract code descends from the Dakota Territory Field Code — 15 O.S. § 217, the restraint-of-trade rule discussed in the trailing-clause question below, carries a source note tracing to R.L.1910, § 978, the same lineage as California's Business and Professions Code § 16600 and North Dakota's restraint statute — but the employer-acquisition companion that lineage produced in some other Dakota-derived codes, a rule vesting in the employer everything an employee acquires by virtue of the employment, appears nowhere in the current Oklahoma Statutes. What bounds an Oklahoma assignment clause instead is judicial construction. In *Amoco Production Co. v. Lindley*, a research employee under a disclose-and-assign contract developed a well-log-analysis software system, and the Oklahoma Supreme Court held that where the contract does not define the term, an invention must be patentable to fall within the assignment [^amoco-invention-patentable]. "Both definitions are based on patent law; thus it follows that ‘invention’, to be so classified for purposes of determining ownership under the contract, must be patentable whether it is or not."[^amoco-invention-patentable] The consequence in *Amoco* itself was that the software system — unpatentable under the patent law of 1980 — fell outside the assignment clause entirely, leaving the employee free to use it [^amoco-software-outside-contract]. "The software system is not an invention, so on the sole basis of the contract Mr. Lindley could disclose it, or use it for his own benefit."[^amoco-software-outside-contract] The 1980 premise that software was unpatentable reflects the patent law of its day and should not be read as putting software outside Oklahoma assignment clauses today. The durable holding is the construction rule: a contract that leaves invention undefined captures only patentable subject matter [^amoco-invention-patentable]. The drafting consequence is to enumerate expressly — software, data, know-how, improvements, and other work product, whether or not patentable — rather than relying on a court to read unpatentable assets into an undefined term. The other boundary on assignment-clause reach is temporal: a clause that extends past the end of employment runs into Oklahoma's restraint-of-trade statute, addressed in the trailing-clause question below. ## Must an Oklahoma employer notify the employee? {#employee-notice} **Short answer.** Not applicable. Oklahoma has no invention-assignment statute, so there is no statutory carve-out to notify the employee about and no notice duty of the kind California imposes under Labor Code § 2872 or Washington imposes under RCW 49.44.140(3). What Oklahoma enforces instead is contractual: the employer's rights in an employee's invention, if any, spring from the employment agreement itself, so any disclosure or assignment duty arises from the contract rather than from a notice-backed statute [^amoco-contract-duty]. There is nothing to give notice of. The California and Washington notice duties exist to alert the employee to a statutory own-time carve-out that limits the assignment; Oklahoma has enacted no such carve-out, so there is no statutory line for a notice to mark. The one Oklahoma statute that does impose invention-related disclosure duties — the Invention Development Services Act — directs them at invention-promotion firms selling services to inventors, not at employers, so it creates no employment-side notice obligation. The contract is where Oklahoma's analysis lives. In *Amoco Production Co. v. Lindley*, the Oklahoma Supreme Court approved the trial judge's statement that the employer's right to an employee's invention, if there is any, springs from the contract of employment [^amoco-contract-duty]. "were it otherwise but for an express agreement or implied agreement in the employment relationship, then the employee’s invention remains the property of the employee."[^amoco-contract-duty] For a multistate employer the takeaway mirrors the other no-statute states: a confidential-information-and-invention-assignment agreement will often carry a § 2872-style notice and a prior-inventions schedule anyway, and in Oklahoma that is portability, not compliance. The notice neither is required nor cures anything — the enforceability of the assignment turns on the contract language and, for any post-employment reach, on the restraint-of-trade limits discussed below. ## Who owns an invention by default in Oklahoma? {#default-ownership} **Short answer.** The employee, unless an express or implied agreement gives it to the employer. Oklahoma has direct authority on the point: in *Amoco Production Co. v. Lindley* the Oklahoma Supreme Court approved the rule that absent an express or implied agreement in the employment relationship, the employee's invention remains the employee's property. The main exception — the employee hired to invent — operates in Oklahoma as implied-in-fact contract law: a federal court applying Oklahoma law in *Skycam, LLC v. Bennett* ran the hired-to-invent framework through Oklahoma's implied-contract statutes and held the employer takes only what the employee was actually employed to invent [^amoco-employee-default][^skycam-implied-contract][^skycam-claim-scope]. *Amoco* anchors the default. The employee there worked under a disclose-and-assign contract, and the court's analysis began from the premise that the employer's rights, if any, spring from that contract — the trial judge's formulation, which the Supreme Court called correct, put the default squarely with the employee [^amoco-employee-default]. "were it otherwise but for an express agreement or implied agreement in the employment relationship, then the employee’s invention remains the property of the employee."[^amoco-employee-default] That default matches the federal baseline. Under *Stanford v. Roche*, rights in an invention start with the inventor [^stanford-inventor-baseline], and under *United States v. Dubilier Condenser Corp.* an employee who was not hired to invent ordinarily keeps the invention, leaving the employer at most an equitable shop right — a non-exclusive license to use it, not ownership [^dubilier-hired-to-invent]. "Since 1790, the patent law has operated on the premise that rights in an invention belong to the inventor."[^stanford-inventor-baseline] "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] *Skycam, LLC v. Bennett* shows how the hired-to-invent exception actually runs in Oklahoma. After a bench trial in a dispute with no express assignment agreement, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma stated the framework by quoting the Federal Circuit's decision in *Banks v. Unisys Corp.* [^skycam-two-exceptions]. "Courts recognize two exceptions to this rule: first, where the employee is a party to an express contract giving the employer the patent rights and second, ‘where an employee is hired to invent something or solve a particular problem, the property of the invention related to this effort may belong to the employer.’"[^skycam-two-exceptions] The court grounded that doctrine in Oklahoma contract law rather than treating it as free-floating federal common law [^skycam-implied-contract]. "Oklahoma law recognizes implied contracts. 15 O.S. § 131."[^skycam-implied-contract] And the exception has real limits: the court found an employed-to-invent relationship existed, yet still denied the employer ownership because the employee had not been employed to invent everything the disputed patent claim covered [^skycam-claim-scope]. "Because Bennett was not employed to invent the entirety of the aerial camera system described in independent Claim 1, the court concludes Skycam is not entitled to ownership of the invention described therein."[^skycam-claim-scope] On the shop right, Oklahoma state courts have said almost nothing — no Oklahoma state-court decision found in our review has adopted or developed the doctrine. The assumed background is the federal framework of *Dubilier*, and *Skycam* shows that Oklahoma courts channel these employer-side doctrines through implied-in-fact contract law rather than a distinct state doctrine [^dubilier-hired-to-invent][^skycam-implied-contract]. Because ownership starts with the inventor and the exceptions are narrow and fact-bound, the dependable path for an Oklahoma employer remains a written present-assignment clause (*hereby assigns*) that moves title automatically on conception, rather than the statute-free default or a future promise to assign [^stanford-inventor-baseline]. ## Are trailing-assignment (holdover) clauses enforceable in Oklahoma? {#holdover-clause-limit} **Short answer.** Untested — and the framework a court would apply is statutory voidness, not reasonableness balancing. No Oklahoma decision found in our review addresses a post-employment trailing-assignment clause. The statute such a clause would be tested under is 15 O.S. § 217, which voids a contract restraining anyone from exercising a lawful profession, trade or business to that extent, outside a short list of statutory safe harbors that no invention assignment fits. Section 219A(B) separately voids any employment-contract provision in conflict with the customer non-solicitation regime, and Oklahoma courts strike an out-of-band covenant rather than narrowing it to something enforceable [^ok-217-restraint-void][^ok-219a-void-clause][^autry-no-sever]. The statutory text does the work. Section 217 is Field Code text — its source note traces to R.L.1910, § 978, the same Dakota-derived lineage as California's Business and Professions Code § 16600 — and it voids covered restraints outright, subject only to the exceptions the statute names [^ok-217-restraint-void]. "Every contract by which any one is restrained from exercising a lawful profession, trade or business of any kind, otherwise than as provided by Sections 218 and 219 of this title, or otherwise than as provided by Section 2 of this act, is to that extent void."[^ok-217-restraint-void] The safe harbors are few and specific: sale-of-goodwill covenants (§ 218), partnership-dissolution covenants (§ 219), the direct-solicitation-of-established-customers covenant permitted by § 219A — the regime enacted by the 2001 act whose section numbering the third exception clause of § 217 cross-references — and employee anti-raiding clauses (§ 219B). A trailing invention assignment fits none of them [^ok-217-restraint-void][^ok-219a-direct-solicit][^ok-219b-not-a-restraint]. Section 219A adds an overlay that matters for employment agreements specifically: any provision in conflict with the section is void by its own terms [^ok-219a-void-clause]. "Any provision in a contract between an employer and an employee in conflict with the provisions of this section shall be void and unenforceable."[^ok-219a-void-clause] The Oklahoma Supreme Court has applied the framework to strike conventional covenants that exceed what the safe harbors allow [^howard-restraints-void]. "The non-competition contracts go well beyond the bounds of what is allowable under § 219A and violate the legislatively expressed public policy."[^howard-restraints-void] The U.S. Supreme Court later vacated that 2011 decision on arbitration-procedure grounds, so the void rule's firmest anchors are the statute itself and *Autry v. Acosta, Inc.* [^ok-217-restraint-void]. *Autry* supplies the anti-severance datum: the Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals held a customer non-solicit that reached indirect solicitation invalid — and refused to rescue it by deleting the single offending word [^autry-no-sever]. "We find that the remedy for this Non-Solicitation Agreement's shortcomings is not quite that simple and it cannot be made to comply with § 219A by merely deleting the word ‘indirectly.’"[^autry-no-sever] The disposition was voidness, not narrowing [^autry-void]. "Examined under the lens of § 219A, the Non-Solicitation Agreement is void and unenforceable as against Oklahoma's public policy expressed by the Legislature's enactment of that section."[^autry-void] Nor is there a reasonableness rescue waiting outside the safe harbors. The rule-of-reason analysis that survives in Oklahoma operates within the § 219A permission — *Inergy Propane, LLC v. Lundy* held that § 219A did not abandon the rule of reason for the covenants the statute allows [^inergy-rule-of-reason]. "That does not, however, require abandonment of the rule of reason analysis required by previously established case law."[^inergy-rule-of-reason] Reasonableness in Oklahoma is a filter applied inside a statutory permission, not a doctrine for saving a restraint that falls outside every permission [^inergy-rule-of-reason][^howard-restraints-void]. Whether § 217 reaches a trailing invention assignment at all is the genuinely open threshold question. A present assignment of inventions conceived during employment allocates ownership of existing work product; it does not restrain the former employee from exercising a profession, so it likely sits outside § 217 altogether [^ok-217-restraint-void]. A trailing clause that captures inventions first conceived after employment ends operates differently — it burdens the former employee's ability to invent for a new employer or for the employee's own account, which is the kind of practical restraint the statute addresses. The Legislature has shown it knows how to take a covenant type outside the statute when it wants to — § 219B directs that a qualifying anti-raiding clause is not to be construed as a restraint from exercising a lawful profession — and it has enacted no such exemption for trailing invention assignments [^ok-219b-not-a-restraint]. If a court characterizes an untethered holdover as a restraint, the consequence is voidness to that extent — invalidation of the offending reach — and *Autry* forecloses the hope that the court will redraft the clause into something enforceable [^ok-217-restraint-void][^autry-no-sever]. > [!CAUTION] > **Drafting note.** > > Because 15 O.S. § 217 voids a covered restraint to that extent and Oklahoma courts will not redraft the offending words — *Autry v. Acosta, Inc.* refused to save a covenant by deleting even a single word — tether any trailing-assignment clause to inventions conceived or reduced to practice during employment, or derived from the employer's trade secrets or confidential information, and keep any post-employment tail short and narrow. An untethered holdover that sweeps in a former employee's future inventions functions as a de facto non-compete and risks being struck rather than trimmed [^ok-217-void-practice][^autry-no-sever-practice]. > [!NOTE] > **Practice note.** > > Do not plan on papering an Oklahoma employee with another state's governing law to give a trailing-assignment clause room Oklahoma law denies it. A federal court applying Oklahoma choice-of-law principles has stated that the forum court will not apply the law chosen by the contracting parties where doing so would violate the public policy of the forum state, and § 219A(B) voids any conflicting employment-contract provision by its own force — so a multistate employer should expect the holdover analysis above to apply to an Oklahoma employee regardless of the contract's governing-law clause [^eakle-choice-of-law-practice][^ok-219a-void-clause-practice]. [^about]: By Steven Obiajulu, J.D. Published by [openagreements.org](https://openagreements.org). Last reviewed 2026-07-03. License: CC BY 4.0. Steven Obiajulu, J.D. is admitted in New York, not Oklahoma. This article synthesizes Oklahoma primary law and is not legal advice from a Oklahoma-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 Oklahoma*, OpenAgreements (last updated July 3, 2026), https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/oklahoma. [^amoco-invention-patentable]: **Amoco Production Co. v. Lindley** — "Both definitions are based on patent law; thus it follows that ‘invention’, to be so classified for purposes of determining ownership under the contract, must be patentable whether it is or not." *Amoco Production Co. v. Lindley, 1980 OK 6, 609 P.2d 733.* [^amoco-software-outside-contract]: **Amoco Production Co. v. Lindley** — "The software system is not an invention, so on the sole basis of the contract Mr. Lindley could disclose it, or use it for his own benefit." *Amoco Production Co. v. Lindley, 1980 OK 6, 609 P.2d 733.* [^amoco-contract-duty]: **Amoco Production Co. v. Lindley** — "were it otherwise but for an express agreement or implied agreement in the employment relationship, then the employee’s invention remains the property of the employee." *Amoco Production Co. v. Lindley, 1980 OK 6, 609 P.2d 733.* [^amoco-employee-default]: **Amoco Production Co. v. Lindley** — "were it otherwise but for an express agreement or implied agreement in the employment relationship, then the employee’s invention remains the property of the employee." *Amoco Production Co. v. Lindley, 1980 OK 6, 609 P.2d 733.* [^skycam-implied-contract]: **Skycam, LLC v. Bennett** — "Oklahoma law recognizes implied contracts. 15 O.S. § 131." *Skycam, LLC v. Bennett, 900 F. Supp. 2d 1264 (N.D. Okla. 2012).* [^skycam-claim-scope]: **Skycam, LLC v. Bennett** — "Because Bennett was not employed to invent the entirety of the aerial camera system described in independent Claim 1, the court concludes Skycam is not entitled to ownership of the invention described therein." *Skycam, LLC v. Bennett, 900 F. Supp. 2d 1264 (N.D. Okla. 2012).* [^stanford-inventor-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).* [^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).* [^skycam-two-exceptions]: **Skycam, LLC v. Bennett** — "Courts recognize two exceptions to this rule: first, where the employee is a party to an express contract giving the employer the patent rights and second, ‘where an employee is hired to invent something or solve a particular problem, the property of the invention related to this effort may belong to the employer.’" *Skycam, LLC v. Bennett, 900 F. Supp. 2d 1264 (N.D. Okla. 2012).* [^ok-217-restraint-void]: **15 O.S. § 217** — "Every contract by which any one is restrained from exercising a lawful profession, trade or business of any kind, otherwise than as provided by Sections 218 and 219 of this title, or otherwise than as provided by Section 2 of this act, is to that extent void." *Okla. Stat. tit. 15, § 217.* [^ok-219a-void-clause]: **15 O.S. § 219A** — "Any provision in a contract between an employer and an employee in conflict with the provisions of this section shall be void and unenforceable." *Okla. Stat. tit. 15, § 219A(B).* [^autry-no-sever]: **Autry v. Acosta, Inc.** — "We find that the remedy for this Non-Solicitation Agreement's shortcomings is not quite that simple and it cannot be made to comply with § 219A by merely deleting the word ‘indirectly.’" *Autry v. Acosta, Inc., 2018 OK CIV APP 8, 410 P.3d 1017.* [^ok-219a-direct-solicit]: **15 O.S. § 219A** — "A person who makes an agreement with an employer, whether in writing or verbally, not to compete with the employer after the employment relationship has been terminated, shall be permitted to engage in the same business as that conducted by the former employer or in a similar business as that conducted by the former employer as long as the former employee does not directly solicit the sale of goods, services or a combination of goods and services from the established customers of the former employer." *Okla. Stat. tit. 15, § 219A(A).* [^ok-219b-not-a-restraint]: **15 O.S. § 219B** — "A contract or contractual provision which prohibits an employee or independent contractor of a person or business from soliciting, directly or indirectly, actively or inactively, the employees or independent contractors of that person or business to become employees or independent contractors of another person or business shall not be construed as a restraint from exercising a lawful profession, trade or business of any kind." *Okla. Stat. tit. 15, § 219B.* [^howard-restraints-void]: **Howard v. Nitro-Lift Technologies, L.L.C.** — "The non-competition contracts go well beyond the bounds of what is allowable under § 219A and violate the legislatively expressed public policy." *Howard v. Nitro-Lift Techs., L.L.C., 2011 OK 98, 273 P.3d 20, vacated on other grounds sub nom. Nitro-Lift Techs., L.L.C. v. Howard, 568 U.S. 17 (2012).* [^autry-void]: **Autry v. Acosta, Inc.** — "Examined under the lens of § 219A, the Non-Solicitation Agreement is void and unenforceable as against Oklahoma's public policy expressed by the Legislature's enactment of that section." *Autry v. Acosta, Inc., 2018 OK CIV APP 8, 410 P.3d 1017.* [^inergy-rule-of-reason]: **Inergy Propane, LLC v. Lundy** — "That does not, however, require abandonment of the rule of reason analysis required by previously established case law." *Inergy Propane, LLC v. Lundy, 2009 OK CIV APP 8, 219 P.3d 547.* [^ok-217-void-practice]: **15 O.S. § 217** — "Every contract by which any one is restrained from exercising a lawful profession, trade or business of any kind, otherwise than as provided by Sections 218 and 219 of this title, or otherwise than as provided by Section 2 of this act, is to that extent void." *Okla. Stat. tit. 15, § 217.* [^autry-no-sever-practice]: **Autry v. Acosta, Inc.** — "We find that the remedy for this Non-Solicitation Agreement's shortcomings is not quite that simple and it cannot be made to comply with § 219A by merely deleting the word ‘indirectly.’" *Autry v. Acosta, Inc., 2018 OK CIV APP 8, 410 P.3d 1017.* [^eakle-choice-of-law-practice]: **Eakle v. Grinnell Corp.** — "As this general rule recognizes, however, the forum court will not apply the law chosen by the contracting parties should doing so violate the public policy of the forum state." *Eakle v. Grinnell Corp., 272 F. Supp. 2d 1304 (E.D. Okla. 2003).* [^ok-219a-void-clause-practice]: **15 O.S. § 219A** — "Any provision in a contract between an employer and an employee in conflict with the provisions of this section shall be void and unenforceable." *Okla. Stat. tit. 15, § 219A(B).*