# Employee Invention Assignment in Wisconsin[^about] Wisconsin has no employee-invention-assignment statute, so an assignment clause is bounded by ordinary contract law, the common-law default rules, and the federal patent overlay — not a California-style own-time carve-out or notice requirement. Absent a written assignment the inventor owns unless hired to invent, the employer's fallback is a shop right, and a post-employment holdover clause would most likely be tested for reasonableness under Wis. Stat. § 103.465 — which voids an unreasonable restraint in its entirety rather than trimming it. ## Can a Wisconsin employer require assignment of every invention? {#statutory-carve-out} **Short answer.** There is no statutory ceiling. Wisconsin 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 by ordinary contract law, the common-law inventor-owns default, and the federal patent overlay. The distinctive Wisconsin backstop is Wis. Stat. § 103.465, which conditions any covered employment restraint on reasonableness and voids an unreasonable one in its entirety [^stat-103465-backstop][^stanford-baseline]. Because there is no statute on point, the limits come from general principles rather than a legislative carve-out. A full-text search of the Wisconsin Statutes surfaces no § 2870-style provision — no statute voiding the assignment of inventions developed on the employee's own time without employer resources. The two Wisconsin statutes adjacent to the area do something different: Wis. Stat. § 103.465 regulates restraints of trade in employment contracts, and Wis. Stat. § 134.90, the state's Uniform Trade Secrets Act, protects qualifying secret information — an unpatented invention kept secret may qualify — but says nothing about who owns an employee's invention or what an assignment clause may reach [^stat-13490-trade-secrets]. The substantive default the contract 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] What Wisconsin adds is a judicial reasonableness backstop rather than a category carve-out. Section 103.465 makes a covered covenant lawful and enforceable only if its restrictions are reasonably necessary to protect the employer [^stat-103465-backstop]. "A covenant by an assistant, servant or agent not to compete with his or her employer or principal during the term of the employment or agency, or after the termination of that employment or agency, within a specified territory and during a specified time is lawful and enforceable only if the restrictions imposed are reasonably necessary for the protection of the employer or principal."[^stat-103465-backstop] The practical consequence is that a Wisconsin employer can, in principle, contract for assignment more broadly than a California or Washington employer, because no statute carves own-time inventions out of the clause's reach. But the breadth is not free. An assignment clause is still an ordinary contract term subject to the usual defenses, and to the extent a clause operates in substance as a restraint on the employee's ability to work — the concern most acute for post-employment holdover terms, discussed below — § 103.465 supplies a reasonableness test with an unusually harsh remedy for overreach [^stat-103465-backstop]. ## Must a Wisconsin employer notify the employee? {#employee-notice} **Short answer.** Not applicable. Because Wisconsin 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 Wisconsin law protects instead is the employee's underlying property in the invention itself, which remains the employee's unless and until the contract transfers it [^barlow-two-properties]. 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; Wisconsin 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 Wisconsin does not have. The protection Wisconsin does supply comes from the common law of property, not a disclosure formality. In *Barlow & Seelig Manufacturing Co. v. Patch*, the Wisconsin Supreme Court framed the employer-employee invention dispute as a contest between two distinct kinds of property and held that the inventor's side of the line stays with the inventor absent an agreement to assign [^barlow-two-properties]. "There are two items of property involved, that of the employer who owns the product in its improved form, and that of the inventor, to whom the novel idea belongs."[^barlow-two-properties] For a multistate employer the takeaway is the inverse of the notice states: a Wisconsin employer neither has to give a § 2872-style notice nor can rely on one to cure an overbroad clause. Whether the assignment binds turns on the contract language and the general limits on restraints, not on any statutory notice or disclosure formality. ## Who owns an invention by default in Wisconsin? {#default-ownership} **Short answer.** The inventor, unless hired to invent. In *Barlow & Seelig Manufacturing Co. v. Patch*, the Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected an employer's claim to a generally employed engineer's invention and confined the employer to shop rights; the narrow exception is the employee hired to invent, whose resulting invention the employer may claim under the federal rule of *Dubilier* [^barlow-shop-rights][^dubilier-hired-to-invent]. *Barlow & Seelig* anchors the Wisconsin default. A mechanical engineer employed generally — not engaged to make the particular invention — kept ownership of his patent, and the court held that the employer's legitimate interests are exhausted by a shop right [^barlow-shop-rights]. "When there is no employment to invent and no agreement to assign, the employer’s interests are fully protected by the privileges and benefits of shop rights."[^barlow-shop-rights] 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] A shop right is a use license, not ownership. Where the employee used the employer's time, materials, and facilities to develop the invention, the employer acquires a right to use it — but the Wisconsin Supreme Court in *Spellman v. Ruhde* was explicit that the license stops short of title [^spellman-shop-right-no-title]. "Note that shop rights generally do not give the employer the title to a patent that the employee may have received."[^spellman-shop-right-no-title] Because ownership starts with the inventor and Wisconsin has no statute filling the gap, the dependable path for an employer 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 — and rather than reliance on hired-to-invent status or a shop right, both of which are fact-intensive and, in the shop-right case, yield only a license. ## Are trailing-assignment (holdover) clauses enforceable in Wisconsin? {#holdover-clause-limit} **Short answer.** Most likely only if reasonable — and an unreasonable one would be void in its entirety. No Wisconsin decision found in our review squarely applies Wis. Stat. § 103.465 to a post-employment invention-assignment clause, so the invention-specific question is open. But the Wisconsin Supreme Court reads § 103.465 to reach any employment provision that in substance restrains trade, whatever its label, and the statute's second sentence voids an unreasonable restraint in toto, with no judicial trimming [^lanning-restraint][^stat-103465-void-in-toto]. The starting point is substance over label. In *Manitowoc Co. v. Lanning*, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that a non-solicitation-of-employees provision — a clause nowhere labeled a non-compete — is a restraint of trade governed by § 103.465 [^lanning-restraint]. "we conclude that Lanning's non-solicitation of employees provision is a restraint of trade governed by Wis. Stat. § 103.465"[^lanning-restraint] *Lanning* restated the rule it drew from *Heyde Cos. v. Dove Healthcare* — that the statute essentially deals with restraint of trade regardless of what the drafter labeled the restriction [^lanning-heyde]. "essentially deals with restraint of trade . . . regardless of whether a restriction is labeled a 'non-disclosure' provision or a 'covenant not to compete.'"[^lanning-heyde] A trailing invention-assignment clause fits that logic: to the extent it sweeps in inventions a former employee first conceives after leaving, it burdens the ex-employee's ability to work and invent in the field, since any new employer would take the fruits of that work subject to the old employer's claim. Extending the *Lanning* line to holdover assignments is a prediction, not a holding. Our review found no Wisconsin decision — state or federal — applying § 103.465 to an invention-assignment clause; the § 103.465 case law concerns non-competes, non-solicits, and confidentiality covenants. So a court could conceivably treat an assignment of property rights as something other than a covered restraint. The safer working assumption, given how consistently Wisconsin courts have refused to let labels control, is that an aggressive holdover clause would be tested for reasonableness like any other post-employment restraint [^lanning-restraint]. The nearest invention-specific precedent is regional and persuasive only. In *Guth v. Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co.*, decided in 1934 — before *Erie* required federal courts sitting in diversity to apply state law — the Seventh Circuit held that employment-contract provisions requiring assignment of future inventions without limit in time or subject matter were contrary to public policy, while enforcing the contract's reasonable provisions [^guth-gross]. "Assignments in gross of future inventions are not favored."[^guth-gross] What makes Wisconsin unusual is the remedy. *Guth* saved the reasonable parts of the contract; modern § 103.465 forbids exactly that move for covenants it covers. The statute's second sentence voids an unreasonable restraint entirely — even the portion that would have been reasonable standing alone — so a Wisconsin court that characterized an overbroad holdover clause as a covered restraint would not narrow it to a reasonable core, it would strike it [^stat-103465-void-in-toto]. "Any covenant, described in this section, imposing an unreasonable restraint is illegal, void and unenforceable even as to any part of the covenant or performance that would be a reasonable restraint."[^stat-103465-void-in-toto] > [!NOTE] > **Practice note.** > > Do not assume the invention-assignment label insulates a holdover clause from Wisconsin restrictive-covenant law. The Wisconsin Supreme Court applies Wis. Stat. § 103.465 to any employment provision that in substance restrains trade, whatever the drafter called it [^lanning-restraint], and if a court characterizes a trailing assignment as a covered restraint, an unreasonable clause is void in its entirety — Wisconsin courts will not trim it to a reasonable core, so overreach forfeits even the enforceable part [^stat-103465-void-in-toto]. Keep any post-employment assignment short and tied to the employer's confidential information or to work actually begun during employment; a clause without limits in time or subject matter is the profile the leading regional precedent condemned as contrary to public policy, in a decision that treats wholesale assignments of future inventions as disfavored [^guth-gross]. [^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 Wisconsin. This article synthesizes Wisconsin primary law and is not legal advice from a Wisconsin-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 Wisconsin*, OpenAgreements (last updated July 2, 2026), https://openagreements.org/practice-guides/invention-assignment/us/wisconsin. [^stat-103465-backstop]: **Wis. Stat. § 103.465** — "A covenant by an assistant, servant or agent not to compete with his or her employer or principal during the term of the employment or agency, or after the termination of that employment or agency, within a specified territory and during a specified time is lawful and enforceable only if the restrictions imposed are reasonably necessary for the protection of the employer or principal." *Wis. Stat. § 103.465.* [^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).* [^stat-13490-trade-secrets]: **Wis. Stat. § 134.90** — "‘Trade secret’ means information, including a formula, pattern, compilation, program, device, method, technique or process to which all of the following apply: 1. The information derives independent economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally known to, and not being readily ascertainable by proper means by, other persons who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or use. 2. The information is the subject of efforts to maintain its secrecy that are reasonable under the circumstances." *Wis. Stat. § 134.90(1)(c).* [^barlow-two-properties]: **Barlow & Seelig Manufacturing Co. v. Patch** — "There are two items of property involved, that of the employer who owns the product in its improved form, and that of the inventor, to whom the novel idea belongs." *Barlow & Seelig Mfg. Co. v. Patch, 232 Wis. 220, 286 N.W. 577 (1939).* [^barlow-shop-rights]: **Barlow & Seelig Manufacturing Co. v. Patch** — "When there is no employment to invent and no agreement to assign, the employer’s interests are fully protected by the privileges and benefits of shop rights." *Barlow & Seelig Mfg. Co. v. Patch, 232 Wis. 220, 286 N.W. 577 (1939).* [^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).* [^spellman-shop-right-no-title]: **Spellman v. Ruhde** — "Note that shop rights generally do not give the employer the title to a patent that the employee may have received." *Spellman v. Ruhde, 28 Wis. 2d 599, 137 N.W.2d 425 (1965).* [^lanning-restraint]: **The Manitowoc Company, Inc. v. Lanning** — "we conclude that Lanning's non-solicitation of employees provision is a restraint of trade governed by Wis. Stat. § 103.465" *The Manitowoc Co., Inc. v. Lanning, 2018 WI 6.* [^stat-103465-void-in-toto]: **Wis. Stat. § 103.465** — "Any covenant, described in this section, imposing an unreasonable restraint is illegal, void and unenforceable even as to any part of the covenant or performance that would be a reasonable restraint." *Wis. Stat. § 103.465.* [^lanning-heyde]: **The Manitowoc Company, Inc. v. Lanning** — "essentially deals with restraint of trade . . . regardless of whether a restriction is labeled a 'non-disclosure' provision or a 'covenant not to compete.'" *The Manitowoc Co., Inc. v. Lanning, 2018 WI 6 (quoting Heyde Cos. v. Dove Healthcare, LLC, 2002 WI 131).* [^guth-gross]: **Guth v. Minnesota Mining & Mfg. Co.** — "Assignments in gross of future inventions are not favored." *Guth v. Minnesota Mining & Mfg. Co., 72 F.2d 385 (7th Cir. 1934).*