{
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  "data": {
    "topic": "invention-assignment",
    "state": "west-virginia",
    "frontmatter": {
      "title": "Employee Invention Assignment in West Virginia",
      "description": "West Virginia 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. Absent a written assignment the inventor owns unless hired to invent; the leading West Virginia-connected case is a Federal Circuit decision enforcing a written present-tense assignment in a West Virginia university dispute, and a post-employment holdover clause would most likely be tested under West Virginia's general restrictive-covenant reasonableness framework, which no West Virginia case has yet applied to an invention-assignment clause in our review.",
      "state": "West Virginia",
      "lastReviewed": "2026-07-02",
      "license": "CC BY 4.0",
      "authors": [
        "steven-obiajulu"
      ],
      "summary": {
        "bottomLine": "West Virginia 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; absent a written assignment the inventor owns unless hired to invent, the leading West Virginia-connected authority is a Federal Circuit decision enforcing a written present-tense assignment in a West Virginia university dispute, and a post-employment holdover clause would most likely be tested under West Virginia's general restrictive-covenant reasonableness framework — including the new-consideration rule for restraints added mid-employment — though no West Virginia case applying that framework to an invention-assignment clause was found in our review.",
        "keyLaw": "No West Virginia invention-assignment statute; Univ. of W. Va. Bd. of Trs. v. VanVoorhies, 278 F.3d 1288 (Fed. Cir. 2002); Reddy v. Cmty. Health Found. of Man, 298 S.E.2d 906 (W. Va. 1982); Stanford v. Roche, 563 U.S. 776 (2011)",
        "statutoryCarveOut": "none",
        "defaultOwnership": "employee",
        "employeeNoticeRequired": "n/a",
        "holdoverClauseLimit": "unsettled",
        "carveOutScope": "West Virginia 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 hired-to-invent exception and the employer's shop right), and the federal patent and copyright overlay."
      },
      "about": [
        "West Virginia invention assignment",
        "West Virginia no invention-assignment statute",
        "West Virginia employee invention ownership",
        "University of West Virginia Board of Trustees v. VanVoorhies",
        "Reddy v. Community Health Foundation of Man",
        "West Virginia hired to invent",
        "West Virginia shop right",
        "West Virginia holdover trailing assignment"
      ],
      "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 West Virginia employer require assignment of every invention?",
        "answerText": "There is no statutory ceiling. Unlike California or New York, West Virginia 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. The baseline that contract operates against is that rights in an invention belong to the inventor, and the leading West Virginia-connected decision enforced a written assignment according to its terms.",
        "sources": [
          {
            "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/west-virginia#src-stanford-baseline"
          },
          {
            "id": "wvu-vanvoorhies-enforced",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "Univ. of W. Va. Bd. of Trs. v. VanVoorhies",
            "citation": "Univ. of W. Va. Bd. of Trs. v. VanVoorhies, 278 F.3d 1288 (Fed. Cir. 2002).",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/776388/university-of-west-virginia-board-of-trustees-v-vanvoorhies/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/776388/university-of-west-virginia-board-of-trustees-v-vanvoorhies/#:~:text=Because%20the%20'970%20assignment%20expressly,by%20refusing%20to%20do%20so.",
            "proposition": "University of West Virginia Board of Trustees v. VanVoorhies — a Federal Circuit decision in a West Virginia university dispute, applying the ordinary federal and contract-law baseline — supports the rule that a written invention assignment is enforced according to its terms, including a duty to assign later continuation-in-part applications.",
            "verbatimQuote": "Because the '970 assignment expressly required VanVoorhies to assign all CIPs of the '970 application to WVU, we affirm the court's conclusion that VanVoorhies was required to assign the '340 CIP application to WVU, and that he breached his duty by refusing to do so.",
            "date": "2002-01-30",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/west-virginia#src-wvu-vanvoorhies-enforced"
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "slug": "employee-notice",
        "label": "Must the employer give the employee written notice of the carve-out?",
        "heading": "Must a West Virginia employer notify the employee?",
        "answerText": "Not applicable. Because West Virginia 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). What gets enforced instead is contractual: disclosure and assignment duties arise from the words of the agreement itself, and in the leading West Virginia-connected case the operative words were a written present-tense grant.",
        "sources": [
          {
            "id": "wvu-vanvoorhies-grant",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "Univ. of W. Va. Bd. of Trs. v. VanVoorhies",
            "citation": "Univ. of W. Va. Bd. of Trs. v. VanVoorhies, 278 F.3d 1288 (Fed. Cir. 2002).",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/776388/university-of-west-virginia-board-of-trustees-v-vanvoorhies/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/776388/university-of-west-virginia-board-of-trustees-v-vanvoorhies/#:~:text=%5BT%5Dhe%20undersigned%20does%20(do)%20hereby,described%20in%20the%20aforesaid%20application",
            "proposition": "University of West Virginia Board of Trustees v. VanVoorhies shows that in West Virginia-connected practice the assignment duty comes from the contract itself — the court recited the agreement's present-tense granting language (quoted here as the contract's words, not the court's holding) and enforced the transfer according to those terms.",
            "verbatimQuote": "[T]he undersigned does (do) hereby sell, assign, transfer and set over unto said assignee, its successors and assigns, the entire right, title and interest in and to said invention or inventions, as described in the aforesaid application",
            "date": "2002-01-30",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/west-virginia#src-wvu-vanvoorhies-grant"
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "slug": "default-ownership",
        "label": "Absent a written assignment, who owns the invention?",
        "heading": "Who owns an invention by default in West Virginia?",
        "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 West Virginia 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.",
        "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/west-virginia#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/west-virginia#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/west-virginia#src-dubilier-hired-to-invent"
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "slug": "holdover-clause-limit",
        "label": "Are post-employment trailing-assignment clauses enforceable?",
        "heading": "Are trailing-assignment (holdover) clauses enforceable in West Virginia?",
        "answerText": "They would most likely be tested for reasonableness — by analogy. No West Virginia decision found in our review addresses a trailing clause that reaches inventions first conceived after employment ends, and there is no statutory temporal cap because there is no invention-assignment statute at all. What West Virginia does have is a well-developed restrictive-covenant framework: a post-employment restraint that is facially unreasonable is utterly void, and a restraint added after employment begins requires new consideration. A West Virginia court asked to enforce an aggressive holdover clause would most likely bring that framework to it.",
        "sources": [
          {
            "id": "reddy-facial-reasonableness",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "Reddy v. Community Health Foundation of Man",
            "citation": "Reddy v. Cmty. Health Found. of Man, 171 W. Va. 368, 298 S.E.2d 906 (1982).",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1309110/reddy-v-community-health-foundation-of-man/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1309110/reddy-v-community-health-foundation-of-man/#:~:text=The%20covenant%20in%20question%20must,is%20utterly%20void%20and%20unenforceable.",
            "proposition": "Reddy v. Community Health Foundation of Man supports West Virginia's threshold rule that a post-employment restrictive covenant must be reasonable on its face, and that a facially unreasonable covenant is utterly void and unenforceable — the framework a court would most likely bring, by analogy, to an aggressive invention-holdover clause.",
            "verbatimQuote": "The covenant in question must be reasonable on its face if judicial scrutiny of it is to continue. If the covenant is unreasonable on its face, then it is utterly void and unenforceable.",
            "date": "1982-12-15",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/west-virginia#src-reddy-facial-reasonableness"
          },
          {
            "id": "reddy-three-part-test",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "Reddy v. Community Health Foundation of Man",
            "citation": "Reddy v. Cmty. Health Found. of Man, 171 W. Va. 368, 298 S.E.2d 906 (1982).",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1309110/reddy-v-community-health-foundation-of-man/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1309110/reddy-v-community-health-foundation-of-man/#:~:text=A%20restraint%20is%20reasonable%20only,not%20injurious%20to%20the%20public",
            "proposition": "Reddy v. Community Health Foundation of Man adopts the three-part rule of reason for employment restraints — the quoted test is Reddy quoting H.M. Blake's Harvard Law Review article on employee agreements not to compete, which the court took as its own standard.",
            "verbatimQuote": "A restraint is reasonable only if it (1) is no greater than is required for the protection of the employer, (2) does not impose undue hardship on the employee, and (3) is not injurious to the public",
            "date": "1982-12-15",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/west-virginia#src-reddy-three-part-test"
          },
          {
            "id": "envtl-products-new-consideration",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "Environmental Products Co., Inc. v. Duncan",
            "citation": "Envtl. Prods. Co. v. Duncan, 168 W. Va. 349, 285 S.E.2d 889 (1981).",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1331693/environmental-products-co-inc-v-duncan/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1331693/environmental-products-co-inc-v-duncan/#:~:text=If%20a%20covenant%20not%20to,new%20consideration%20to%20support%20it.",
            "proposition": "Environmental Products Co. v. Duncan, applying Pemco Corp. v. Rose, supports the rule that a restraint imposed after employment has already begun must be supported by new consideration — the timing rule that would reach an invention-assignment or holdover clause added mid-employment.",
            "verbatimQuote": "If a covenant not to compete is contracted after employment has been commenced without restriction, there must be new consideration to support it.",
            "date": "1981-12-02",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/west-virginia#src-envtl-products-new-consideration"
          },
          {
            "id": "envtl-products-continued-employment",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "Environmental Products Co., Inc. v. Duncan",
            "citation": "Envtl. Prods. Co. v. Duncan, 168 W. Va. 349, 285 S.E.2d 889 (1981).",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1331693/environmental-products-co-inc-v-duncan/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1331693/environmental-products-co-inc-v-duncan/#:~:text=It%20certainly%20is%20not%20adequate%20here.",
            "proposition": "Environmental Products Co. v. Duncan held, on the facts before it and over a dissent, that continued at-will employment was not adequate consideration for a restraint added mid-employment — a fact-bound application of the new-consideration rule, not a categorical holding that continued employment can never suffice.",
            "verbatimQuote": "It certainly is not adequate here.",
            "date": "1981-12-02",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/west-virginia#src-envtl-products-continued-employment"
          },
          {
            "id": "wvu-vanvoorhies-grant-practice",
            "authorityType": "case-law",
            "tier": "primary-source-backed",
            "title": "Univ. of W. Va. Bd. of Trs. v. VanVoorhies",
            "citation": "Univ. of W. Va. Bd. of Trs. v. VanVoorhies, 278 F.3d 1288 (Fed. Cir. 2002).",
            "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/776388/university-of-west-virginia-board-of-trustees-v-vanvoorhies/",
            "deepLink": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/776388/university-of-west-virginia-board-of-trustees-v-vanvoorhies/#:~:text=%5BT%5Dhe%20undersigned%20does%20(do)%20hereby,described%20in%20the%20aforesaid%20application",
            "proposition": "University of West Virginia Board of Trustees v. VanVoorhies shows the drafting pattern that was enforced in the leading West Virginia-connected dispute — a written present-tense sell-assign-transfer grant (quoted here as the contract's language recited by the court, not the court's holding).",
            "verbatimQuote": "[T]he undersigned does (do) hereby sell, assign, transfer and set over unto said assignee, its successors and assigns, the entire right, title and interest in and to said invention or inventions, as described in the aforesaid application",
            "date": "2002-01-30",
            "anchor": "https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/west-virginia#src-wvu-vanvoorhies-grant-practice"
          },
          {
            "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/west-virginia#src-stanford-traceback-practice"
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}