Can an Oregon employer require assignment of every invention?
There is no statutory ceiling. Unlike California or Washington, Oregon 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 overlay. Oregon's own appellate court states the baseline the clause is drafted against: in a general employment relationship, the employee keeps the patent. On a touch screen, a tap shows all 2 sources in this group.
Because there is no statute on point, the limits come from general principles rather than a legislative carve-out. A full-text search of Oregon Revised Statutes chapter 653 (conditions of employment) and chapter 646 (trade practices) surfaces no invention-, patent-, or intellectual-property-assignment provision, and the only intellectual-property provisions our review located elsewhere in the ORS are management powers for public bodies such as community college districts — none is a private-employer assignment regime. An Oregon employer therefore starts from contract law, not a § 2870-style statutory ceiling on what an assignment promise may capture.
The leading Oregon authority is Mainland Industries, Inc. v. Timberland Machines & Engineering Corp., where the Oregon Court of Appeals stated the common-law default that any assignment clause operates against .
(The single-e spelling employe in the quoted Oregon passages is the original reporter style, preserved here.)
That default restates the federal patent premise the Supreme Court reaffirmed in Stanford v. Roche: absent an effective assignment, rights in an invention belong to the person who conceived it .
The practical consequence is that an Oregon 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 a clause operates as a restraint on the employee — most clearly a post-employment tail — Oregon's common-law reasonableness limits on partial restraints of trade come into play, as discussed under the trailing-clause question below. There is simply no statutory own-time safe harbor for the employee to invoke and no statutory ceiling for the drafter to code around.
Sources for this answer
Mainland Industries states Oregon's common-law default that an employee in a general employment relationship retains any patent the employee procures, even one relating to the employer's product line — the baseline an assignment clause is drafted against.
When the employment relationship is general, an employe is entitled to retain any patent he procures, even though the patent relates to the employer’s product line.
See Mainland Industries, Inc. v. Timberland Machines & Engineering Corp., 58 Or. App. 585, 649 P.2d 613 (Or. Ct. App. 1982).
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.
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).
Must an Oregon employer notify the employee?
Not applicable. Because Oregon 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 contrast within Oregon law is instructive: where the legislature wants an advance-notice formality in an employment agreement, it says so — the noncompete statute conditions validity on written notice before employment begins — and it has imposed nothing similar for invention assignments .
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; Oregon 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 Oregon does not have.
Oregon's legislature plainly knows how to attach a notice formality to an employment covenant when it wants one. ORS 653.295 makes a covered noncompetition agreement void and unenforceable unless, among other conditions, the employer flags it in the written employment offer well before the job starts .
No analogous formality exists for invention-assignment clauses anywhere in the chapter. What Oregon enforces instead is the agreement itself, read against the common-law categories: the duty to assign turns on whether the parties agreed otherwise and on how the employee was engaged, not on any statutory notice or disclosure step .
For a multistate employer the takeaway is the inverse of the notice states: an Oregon employer neither has to give a § 2872-style notice nor can rely on one to cure an overbroad clause. The enforceability of the assignment turns entirely on the contract language and the general limits on restraints, not on any statutory notice or disclosure formality.
Sources for this answer
ORS 653.295(1)(a)(A) conditions the validity of a covered noncompetition agreement on advance written notice in the employment offer — showing that Oregon attaches notice formalities to employment covenants by express statute, and it has enacted no notice requirement for invention-assignment clauses.
The employer informs the employee in a written employment offer received by the employee at least two weeks before the first day of the employee’s employment that a noncompetition agreement is required as a condition of employment
See Or. Rev. Stat. § 653.295(1)(a)(A) (2025).
Mainland Industries frames the duty to assign as a function of the parties' agreement and the manner of engagement — absent an agreement to the contrary, ownership follows the common-law categories — so in Oregon disclosure and assignment duties arise from the contract, not from a notice-requiring statute.
Absent an agreement to the contrary, when an employe is hired to invent, or is assigned the responsibility for solving a particular problem, any resulting invention belongs to the employer.
See Mainland Industries, Inc. v. Timberland Machines & Engineering Corp., 58 Or. App. 585, 649 P.2d 613 (Or. Ct. App. 1982).
Who owns an invention by default in Oregon?
The inventor, unless hired to invent. Absent a written assignment, Oregon follows the common-law rule that an employee in a general employment relationship keeps any patent the employee procures — even one relating to the employer's product line — while an employee hired to invent, or assigned a particular problem to solve, must assign the resulting invention to the employer. Where neither applies but the employee used the employer's time and materials, the employer gets only a shop right, a non-assignable license rather than ownership. On a touch screen, a tap shows all 3 sources in this group.
Mainland Industries anchors the default. The Oregon Court of Appeals — the highest Oregon court to have addressed employee-invention ownership in the decisions found in our review — stated the rule in terms that leave the invention with the employee unless an exception applies .
The principal exception is the employee hired to invent. In White's Electronics, Inc. v. Teknetics, Inc., the court restated the rule and applied it against an inventor who had been hired precisely because of his exceptional inventive abilities in the metal detector field: he was bound to assign the inventions he completed during his employment even though no written assignment agreement was in force at the time .
Short of hired-to-invent, an employer whose general-capacity employee built the invention on company time gets a shop right, not title. Mainland Industries describes the doctrine as a license, and the court's disposition drives the point home: it vacated a decree that had given the employee's confederate a license in the disputed patent and ordered an accounting and constructive trust instead, because ownership questions turn on these categories, not on who ended up holding the paper .
Both Oregon decisions take this framework directly from United States v. Dubilier Condenser Corp., the Supreme Court decision each opinion cites for the hired-to-invent rule .
Two caveats on precedential weight. First, the leading Oregon cases are Court of Appeals decisions from 1982 and 1984; no Oregon Supreme Court decision on employee-invention ownership was found in our review, so the framework, while stable, has never been ratified by the state's highest court. Second, the case law is patent-focused: no Oregon authority found in our review addresses whether an unwritten default would treat copyright, trade-secret, or other subject matter the same way, which is one more reason the dependable path for an employer is a written present-assignment (hereby assigns) clause that transfers title automatically on conception rather than a future promise to assign.
Sources for this answer
Mainland Industries holds that when the employment relationship is general, the employee is entitled to retain any patent the employee procures, even one relating to the employer's product line — Oregon's default rule absent a written assignment.
When the employment relationship is general, an employe is entitled to retain any patent he procures, even though the patent relates to the employer’s product line.
See Mainland Industries, Inc. v. Timberland Machines & Engineering Corp., 58 Or. App. 585, 649 P.2d 613 (Or. Ct. App. 1982).
White's Electronics holds that an employee hired to invent who succeeds during the term of service is bound to assign all rights in the invention to the employer, applying the rule to an inventor hired for his inventive abilities even without a written agreement in force.
Absent an agreement to the contrary, an employe who is hired to invent, and who succeeds during his term of service in accomplishing that task, is bound to assign to the employer all rights in the invention.
See White's Electronics, Inc. v. Teknetics, Inc., 67 Or. App. 63, 677 P.2d 68 (Or. Ct. App. 1984).
Mainland Industries describes Oregon's shop-right doctrine — an employer is granted a non-assignable license, not ownership, when a general-capacity employee creates an invention using the employer's time and materials.
Under that doctrine, an employer is granted a non-assignable license to a patent when an employe who works in a general or non-inventive capacity creates an invention using the employer’s time and materials.
See Mainland Industries, Inc. v. Timberland Machines & Engineering Corp., 58 Or. App. 585, 649 P.2d 613 (Or. Ct. App. 1982).
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 — the rule both Oregon decisions cite as the source of their framework.
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.
See United States v. Dubilier Condenser Corp., 289 U.S. 178 (1933).
Are trailing-assignment (holdover) clauses enforceable in Oregon?
Probably yes if kept to a reasonable tail — but the Oregon authority is thin. The Oregon Court of Appeals has said, in dicta, that employers may protect themselves with contracts capturing inventions conceived during employment and for a reasonable period after termination; the clause in that very case was never enforced, and no Oregon decision found in our review has enforced or struck a trailing-assignment clause on the merits. Because assignment clauses fall outside the noncompete statute's definition, the limit a court would most likely apply is Oregon's common-law reasonableness rule for partial restraints of trade. On a touch screen, a tap shows all 3 sources in this group.
The on-point Oregon discussion comes from White's Electronics. The employer there had once obtained a written agreement assigning inventions made during employment and for six months after termination, but the agreement was not revived when the inventor was rehired, and the employer lost the post-employment piece of the case because the concept at issue had not crystallized into an invention before the inventor left. Responding to the employer's policy argument that such a rule would let employed inventors game the timing, the court pointed to holdover contracts as the fix .
That endorsement is dicta, and the opinion itself shows why: the court was explaining what the employer could have contracted for, not enforcing the clause it failed to obtain .
No statute supplies a cap either. ORS 653.295 imposes strict conditions on covered noncompetition agreements, but its definition reaches only a promise not to compete with the employer in providing similar products, processes, or services after termination — an invention-assignment clause promises a transfer of rights, not a forbearance from competing, so it sits outside the statute .
A trailing clause so broad that it operates as a practical bar on working for a competitor could invite an argument that it should be tested under the statute by analogy, but no Oregon authority found in our review addresses that argument either way .
With the statute out of the picture, the governing framework is the common-law reasonableness rule for partial restraints of trade, which the Oregon Supreme Court stated in Eldridge v. Johnston .
Applying that test to an invention holdover is a prediction, not a holding: White's Electronics endorsed a reasonable-period tail without fixing any number, and no Oregon decision found in our review has decided how long is too long. The safe reading is that a short tail tied to inventions conceived or developed during employment is probably enforceable under Oregon's reasonableness framework, while an open-ended or industry-wide trailing assignment is at meaningful risk of being treated as an unreasonable restraint.
Sources for this answer
White's Electronics, answering the employer's policy argument, says in dicta that employers may protect themselves with contracts assigning inventions conceived during employment and during a reasonable period after termination — Oregon's only appellate endorsement of a holdover tail.
Our response is that employers could protect themselves by requiring inventors to enter into contracts that provide that the employer is entitled to any inventions conceived during the term of employment and during a reasonable period of time after termination.
See White's Electronics, Inc. v. Teknetics, Inc., 67 Or. App. 63, 677 P.2d 68 (Or. Ct. App. 1984).
White's Electronics shows the holdover endorsement is dicta — the employer had obtained such an agreement in the first stint of employment but not the second, and that failure was fatal to its post-employment claim, so no holdover clause was enforced.
In fact, White’s required Payne to sign such an agreement during his first period of employment. Its failure to obtain such an agreement the second time around is fatal to its case.
See White's Electronics, Inc. v. Teknetics, Inc., 67 Or. App. 63, 677 P.2d 68 (Or. Ct. App. 1984).
ORS 653.295(8)(d) defines a noncompetition agreement as a promise not to compete with the employer in providing similar products, processes or services after termination — a definition an invention-assignment clause does not fit, so trailing-assignment clauses sit outside the statute and default to common-law limits.
“Noncompetition agreement” means a written agreement between an employer and employee under which the employee agrees that the employee, either alone or as an employee of another person, will not compete with the employer in providing products, processes or services that are similar to the employer’s products, processes or services for a period of time or within a specified geographic area after termination of employment.
See Or. Rev. Stat. § 653.295(8)(d) (2025).
Eldridge v. Johnston states the Oregon Supreme Court's three-part test for the validity of a partial restraint of trade — partial in time or place, supported by consideration, and reasonable — the framework a court would most likely apply to a post-employment trailing-assignment clause.
Three things are essential to the validity of a contract in restraint of trade: (1) it must be partial or restricted in its operation in respect either to time or place; (2) it must be on some good consideration; and (3) it must be reasonable, that is, it should afford only a fair protection to the interests of the party in whose favor it is made, and must not be so large in its operation as to interfere with the interests of the public.
See Eldridge v. Johnston, 195 Or. 379, 245 P.2d 239 (Or. 1952).
Mainland Industries holds that in a general employment relationship the employee retains any patent the employee procures, even one relating to the employer's product line — so an Oregon employer's rights are only as good as the written assignment that transfers them.
When the employment relationship is general, an employe is entitled to retain any patent he procures, even though the patent relates to the employer’s product line.
See Mainland Industries, Inc. v. Timberland Machines & Engineering Corp., 58 Or. App. 585, 649 P.2d 613 (Or. Ct. App. 1982).
Do not treat the holdover dicta as settled Oregon law. Ownership starts with the employee in a general employment relationship, so an Oregon employer's rights are only as good as the words that transfer them — use present-assignment (hereby assigns) language and get the agreement signed every time employment begins, because the one Oregon employer to litigate a holdover clause lost precisely for failing to re-obtain the agreement on rehire. On a touch screen, a tap shows all 2 sources in this group. Keep any trailing assignment short and tied to inventions conceived or developed during employment: the only Oregon appellate support for a tail is dicta endorsing a reasonable period after termination, with no decision found in our review enforcing one , and an overbroad tail risks being struck as an unreasonable partial restraint under the Oregon Supreme Court's three-part reasonableness test .
What does federal law require a confidentiality and invention assignment agreement in Oregon to say about whistleblowers and pay?
An employee confidentiality, non-compete, or invention assignment agreement signed or updated now that governs trade secrets or other confidential information must give the Defend Trade Secrets Act whistleblower-immunity notice, and for employees the National Labor Relations Act covers, Section 7 of that Act protects concerted activity, including joining together over pay and working conditions, that a broad confidentiality clause can restrict. The employer may satisfy the notice duty by cross-referencing a qualifying policy document provided to the employee, but an employer that omits the notice may not be awarded exemplary damages or attorney fees under the Defend Trade Secrets Act in an action against an employee who was not given notice.
The notice describes a federal immunity: an individual cannot be held liable under federal or state trade-secret law for disclosing a trade secret in confidence to a government official or an attorney solely to report or investigate a suspected violation of law, or in a court filing made under seal. For an agreement signed or updated now, the duty to give that notice reaches any agreement with an employee that governs trade secrets or other confidential information, whatever else the agreement does.
Section 7 gives employees the National Labor Relations Act covers a statutory right to engage in concerted activity for mutual aid or protection, including joining together to improve pay and working conditions. For employees the Act covers, the Board's work-rule standard adopted in 2023 makes a rule presumptively unlawful if it has a reasonable tendency to chill employees from exercising their Section 7 rights; an employer can rebut that presumption only by showing a legitimate and substantial business interest it cannot serve with a more narrowly tailored rule. The 2023 standard may change, but the Section 7 right it enforces is statutory. State law may add its own requirements for the same clauses.
A form carried over without the immunity notice, or a cross-reference to a reporting policy the employee never received, leaves the confidentiality clause without a valid notice, so the Act's exemplary damages and attorney fees are unavailable against that employee. A Confidential Information definition that sweeps in pay and working conditions with no carve-out exposes the employer to an unfair-labor-practice finding for employees the Act covers.
Sources for this answer
An individual is immune from criminal and civil liability under federal and state trade-secret law for disclosing a trade secret in confidence to a government official or an attorney solely to report or investigate a suspected violation of law, or in a court filing made under seal.
An individual shall not be held criminally or civilly liable under any Federal or State trade secret law for the disclosure of a trade secret that— (A) is made— (i) in confidence to a Federal, State, or local government official, either directly or indirectly, or to an attorney; and (ii) solely for the purpose of reporting or investigating a suspected violation of law; or (B) is made in a complaint or other document filed in a lawsuit or other proceeding, if such filing is made under seal.
See 18 U.S.C. § 1833(b)(1).
An employer must give notice of the trade-secret whistleblower immunity in any contract or agreement with an employee that governs the use of a trade secret or other confidential information.
An employer shall provide notice of the immunity set forth in this subsection in any contract or agreement with an employee that governs the use of a trade secret or other confidential information.
See 18 U.S.C. § 1833(b)(3)(A).
An employer complies with the notice requirement by cross-referencing a policy document, provided to the employee, that sets out the employer's reporting policy for a suspected violation of law.
An employer shall be considered to be in compliance with the notice requirement in subparagraph (A) if the employer provides a cross-reference to a policy document provided to the employee that sets forth the employer's reporting policy for a suspected violation of law.
See 18 U.S.C. § 1833(b)(3)(B).
An employer that does not give the required notice may not be awarded exemplary damages or attorney fees in a trade-secret action against an employee who did not receive it.
If an employer does not comply with the notice requirement in subparagraph (A), the employer may not be awarded exemplary damages or attorney fees under subparagraph (C) or (D) of section 1836(b)(3) in an action against an employee to whom notice was not provided.
See 18 U.S.C. § 1833(b)(3)(C).
Section 7 gives employees the right to engage in concerted activities for mutual aid or protection, the statutory basis for keeping discussion of pay and working conditions outside confidentiality restrictions.
Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, and shall also have the right to refrain from any or all of such activities except to the extent that such right may be affected by an agreement requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment as authorized in section 158(a)(3) of this title.
See 29 U.S.C. § 157 (NLRA § 7).
The National Labor Relations Board protects the right of private-sector employees, with or without a union, to join together to improve wages, benefits, and working conditions.
Established in 1935, the National Labor Relations Board is an independent federal agency that protects employees from unfair labor practices and protects the right of private sector employees to join together, with or without a union, to improve wages, benefits and working conditions.
See NLRB Office of Public Affairs, news release of Feb. 21, 2023 (agency mission statement).
Under the work-rule standard the Board adopted in 2023, a rule with a reasonable tendency to chill employees from exercising their Section 7 rights is presumptively unlawful unless the employer proves a legitimate and substantial business interest it cannot advance with a more narrowly tailored rule.
Under the new standard adopted in Stericycle, the General Counsel must prove that a challenged rule has a reasonable tendency to chill employees from exercising their rights. If the General Counsel does so, then the rule is presumptively unlawful. However, the employer may rebut the presumption by proving that the rule advances a legitimate and substantial business interest and that the employer is unable to advance that interest with a more narrowly tailored rule.
See Stericycle, Inc., 372 NLRB No. 113 (2023); NLRB Office of Public Affairs, Board Adopts New Standard for Assessing Lawfulness of Work Rules (Aug. 2, 2023).