Can a Wyoming employer require assignment of every invention?
There is no statutory ceiling. Wyoming has no employee-invention-assignment statute — nothing that voids an assignment of a true own-time, own-resource invention the way California Labor Code § 2870 does — so an assignment clause's reach is bounded by ordinary contract law, the common-law inventor-owns default, and the federal patent and copyright overlay. The Wyoming Supreme Court's employee-invention decision, Preston v. Marathon Oil Co., starts from the rule that an invention belongs to its inventor unless the inventor has contracted it away.
The statutory silence is unusually complete. The Wyoming Statutes contain no invention-assignment provision, no own-time carve-out, and no notice or disclosure mandate; the only place the word invention appears anywhere in the code is inside the criminal-code trade-secret definition, Wyo. Stat. § 6-3-501(a)(xi), which protects trade secrets irrespective of novelty, invention, or patentability . A Wyoming employer therefore starts from contract law, not from a statutory ceiling on what an assignment promise may capture.
The baseline the contract operates against comes from Preston v. Marathon Oil Co., in which the Wyoming Supreme Court, answering a certified question from the Federal Circuit, adopted the general rule for employee inventions .
Wyoming has also decided how easily an employer may put such a contract in place. The certified question in Preston was whether continuing an existing at-will employee's job is adequate consideration for an intellectual-property-assignment agreement, and the court answered yes .
That holding makes assignment agreements easier to roll out mid-employment in Wyoming than non-competes. For non-competes signed by an existing employee, Wyoming requires separate consideration beyond continued employment; Preston expressly declined to extend that requirement to assignment agreements because an assignment affects property rights rather than restraining trade.
The breadth is not unlimited. An assignment clause is still an ordinary contract term subject to general contract defenses, and where a clause goes beyond transferring property rights and functions as a restraint on the employee's ability to work, Wyoming's restraint-of-trade limits — including, for contracts entered into on or after July 1, 2025, a statutory void rule — come into play. The trailing-clause question below covers those limits.
Sources for this answer
Case law · 2012-05-10
A.1 Preston v. Marathon Oil Co.Preston v. Marathon Oil Co. adopts the general rule that an invention is the property of the inventor unless he or she has contracted those rights away — the baseline any Wyoming assignment clause operates against.
Generally an invention is the property of the inventor who conceived, developed, and perfected it, and the law protects and enforces the inventor's property rights in an invention unless he or she has contracted them away.
See Preston v. Marathon Oil Co., 2012 WY 66, 277 P.3d 81 (Wyo. 2012).
Primary law
A.2 Wyo. Stat. § 6-3-501(a)(xi)PDFWyo. Stat. § 6-3-501(a)(xi), the criminal-code trade-secret definition, is the only provision of the Wyoming Statutes that mentions invention at all — evidence that Wyoming has no employee-invention-assignment statute.
"Trade secret" means the whole or a portion or phase of a formula, pattern, device, combination of devices or compilation of information which is for use, or is used in the operation of a business and which provides the business an advantage or an opportunity to obtain an advantage over those who do not know or use it.
See Wyo. Stat. § 6-3-501(a)(xi).
Case law · 2012-05-10
A.3 Preston v. Marathon Oil Co.Preston v. Marathon Oil Co. answers the certified question yes — continued at-will employment is sufficient consideration for an intellectual-property-assignment agreement signed by an existing employee, with no additional consideration required.
no additional consideration is required to support an employee's post-employment execution of an agreement to assign intellectual property to his employer.
See Preston v. Marathon Oil Co., 2012 WY 66, 277 P.3d 81 (Wyo. 2012).
Case law · 1993-10-01
A.4 Hopper v. All Pet Animal Clinic, Inc.Hopper v. All Pet Animal Clinic states Wyoming's separate-consideration rule for non-competes signed by existing employees — the rule Preston declined to extend to intellectual-property assignments.
We believe strong public policy favors separate consideration.
See Hopper v. All Pet Animal Clinic, Inc., 861 P.2d 531 (Wyo. 1993).
Must a Wyoming employer notify the employee?
Not applicable. Because Wyoming 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 Wyoming enforces is contractual — an employee's assignment obligations exist only to the extent the employee has contracted invention rights away .
There is nothing to give notice of. Notice requirements exist in the carve-out states precisely to alert the employee to a statutory own-time exception that limits the assignment; Wyoming has enacted no such exception, 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 Wyoming does not have.
The source of any disclosure or assignment duty is the agreement itself. Preston v. Marathon Oil Co. frames the entire analysis in contract terms: the inventor owns unless he or she has contracted those rights away, so the employer's rights — and the employee's corresponding duties — rise and fall with the contract .
For a multistate employer the takeaway is the inverse of the notice states: a Wyoming 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 on the contract language and on the restraint-of-trade limits discussed below, not on any statutory notice or disclosure formality.
Sources for this answer
Case law · 2012-05-10
B.1 Preston v. Marathon Oil Co.Preston v. Marathon Oil Co. treats employee-invention ownership as contractual — the inventor owns unless rights are contracted away — so in Wyoming any disclosure or assignment duty arises from the agreement itself rather than from a notice-requiring statute.
Generally an invention is the property of the inventor who conceived, developed, and perfected it, and the law protects and enforces the inventor's property rights in an invention unless he or she has contracted them away.
See Preston v. Marathon Oil Co., 2012 WY 66, 277 P.3d 81 (Wyo. 2012).
Who owns an invention by default in Wyoming?
The inventor, unless hired to invent. Wyoming does not leave this to analogy — in Preston v. Marathon Oil Co. the Wyoming Supreme Court itself adopted the inventor-owns default, with the hired-to-invent rule and the employer's shop right as the exceptions, matching the baseline of federal patent law.
Preston states the default in the court's own analysis of the certified question .
That is the same premise the U.S. Supreme Court restated in Stanford v. Roche .
The first 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 — a rule the Preston court likewise recognized for employees hired specifically to invent .
The second doctrine covers the middle case — an employee who was not hired to invent but invents at work with the employer's resources. There the employer gets a shop right, a license to use the invention, not ownership of it. The Preston court set out both the trigger and the limit of the shop right by quoting 27 Am. Jur. 2d Employment Relationship § 188 — the formulation is the treatise's, adopted by the court.
Because ownership starts with the inventor, the dependable path for a Wyoming employer is a written present-assignment clause. In the companion appeal applying Wyoming's certified answer, the Federal Circuit held that the hereby assign language in the Marathon agreement worked as an automatic present assignment of future inventions .
Sources for this answer
Case law · 2012-05-10
C.1 Preston v. Marathon Oil Co.Preston v. Marathon Oil Co. adopts the inventor-owns default for Wyoming — absent a contract assigning them away, invention rights belong to the employee who conceived, developed, and perfected the invention.
Generally an invention is the property of the inventor who conceived, developed, and perfected it, and the law protects and enforces the inventor's property rights in an invention unless he or she has contracted them away.
See Preston v. Marathon Oil Co., 2012 WY 66, 277 P.3d 81 (Wyo. 2012).
Case law · 2011-06-06
C.2 Bd. of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior Univ. v. Roche Molecular SystemsStanford v. Roche confirms the long-standing premise of U.S. patent law that rights in an invention belong to the inventor, the same baseline the Wyoming Supreme Court adopted in Preston.
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).
Case law · 1933-05-08
C.3 United States v. Dubilier Condenser Corp.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 hired-to-invent exception to the inventor-owns default.
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).
Case law · 2012-05-10
C.4 Preston v. Marathon Oil Co.Preston v. Marathon Oil Co., quoting 27 Am. Jur. 2d Employment Relationship § 188, adopts the shop-right rule for Wyoming — an employee not hired to invent who conceives a device at work with the employer's materials gives the employer an irrevocable but nonexclusive right to use the invention.
Where the employee is not hired specifically to design or invent, but nevertheless conceives of a device during working hours with the use of the employer's materials and equipment, the employer is granted an irrevocable but nonexclusive right to use the invention under the shop-right rule.
See Preston v. Marathon Oil Co., 2012 WY 66, 277 P.3d 81 (Wyo. 2012) (quoting 27 Am. Jur. 2d Employment Relationship § 188 (2011)).
Case law · 2012-05-10
C.5 Preston v. Marathon Oil Co.Preston v. Marathon Oil Co., quoting 27 Am. Jur. 2d Employment Relationship § 188, confirms that a shop right is only a license — the invention remains the property of the employee, who may exclude everyone but the employer.
Notwithstanding the existence of the shop right, the invention remains the property of the employee, and the employee has the right, conferred by the patent, to exclude all but the employer from the benefits of the invention.
See Preston v. Marathon Oil Co., 2012 WY 66, 277 P.3d 81 (Wyo. 2012) (quoting 27 Am. Jur. 2d Employment Relationship § 188 (2011)).
Case law · 2012-07-10
C.6 Preston v. Marathon Oil Co. (Fed. Cir.)The Federal Circuit's companion Preston decision, applying Wyoming's certified answer, holds that hereby-assign language is an express present assignment of future inventions that transfers rights automatically, without any additional act.
it is an express assignment of rights in future inventions that automatically assigned rights to Marathon without the need for any additional act.
See Preston v. Marathon Oil Co., 684 F.3d 1276 (Fed. Cir. 2012).
Are trailing-assignment (holdover) clauses enforceable in Wyoming?
Reasonableness is the operative limit, and since July 1, 2025 the answer also depends on when the contract was signed. No Wyoming statute addresses invention holdover clauses specifically, but Preston v. Marathon Oil Co. enforced an assignment agreement containing a one-year post-termination presumption clause, reasoning that the assignment imposed no improper restraint on trade — so restraint-of-trade scrutiny is the frame when a trailing clause does restrain. For contracts entered into on or after July 1, 2025, a holdover clause that operates as a covenant not to compete is void under Wyo. Stat. § 1-23-108(a) unless a statutory exception applies.
Start with what Preston actually decided. The Marathon agreement treated intellectual property conceived within one year after termination as presumptively made during employment — a presumption about timing, not an assignment of genuinely post-employment inventions — and the court emphasized that the agreement left the ex-employee's later inventions alone .
The court's reasoning supplies the framework: because the assignment did not impair the employee's ability to earn a living or restrain trade, the stricter rules for non-competes did not apply .
The converse follows: a trailing clause broad enough to reach inventions first conceived after employment ends — and so to burden the former employee's ability to do paid inventive work — invites analysis as a restraint of trade rather than a simple property transfer. No Wyoming decision found in our review squarely decides whether such a pure post-employment assignment clause is enforceable, so the trailing-clause cell reflects the reasonableness framework the authorities supply, not a decided holdover holding.
For contracts entered into before July 1, 2025, that framework is Wyoming's common-law reasonableness test for restraints. Hopper v. All Pet Animal Clinic, Inc. states the elements , and the 2025 act expressly leaves those older agreements to prior law .
For contracts entered into on or after July 1, 2025, Wyoming adds a statutory layer. Wyo. Stat. § 1-23-108(a) voids covenants not to compete that restrict a person's right to be paid for labor .
The act's savings clause makes the split explicit — it applies only prospectively .
Two statutory exceptions matter most for invention holdovers. First, the ban does not reach a covenant to the extent it protects trade secrets — and the exception borrows the criminal-code definition in Wyo. Stat. § 6-3-501(a)(xi), not the definition in Wyoming's separate civil trade-secrets act .
Second, the ban does not apply to executive and management personnel or the professional staff who support them — which materially narrows the statute's bite for exactly the senior R&D population most likely to face an aggressive holdover clause .
Whether § 1-23-108 reaches invention-assignment clauses at all is an open statutory question. The Preston rationale — an assignment affects property rights rather than restraining trade — points away from coverage for ordinary assignment clauses, but a holdover clause that functionally bars a departed employee from doing paid inventive work is an untested target, and no decision applying the statute to an invention holdover was found in our review; the statute has been in effect only since July 1, 2025.
The consequence of overreach is severe, because Wyoming abolished the blue-pencil rescue. In Hassler v. Circle C Resources the Wyoming Supreme Court held that courts may no longer trim an unreasonable restraint down to an enforceable core — an overbroad covenant is void in its entirety .
Sources for this answer
Case law · 2012-05-10
D.3 Preston v. Marathon Oil Co.Preston v. Marathon Oil Co. describes the enforced agreement's one-year post-termination clause as a presumption about when inventions were conceived and emphasizes that the agreement did not reach inventions created after employment ended — Wyoming's closest trailing-clause authority.
The assignment agreement also did not affect Mr. Preston's rights to inventions he created after his employment with Marathon was over, although intellectual property conceived or made by him within one year after termination was "presumed to have been made or conceived during" his employment.
See Preston v. Marathon Oil Co., 2012 WY 66, 277 P.3d 81 (Wyo. 2012).
Case law · 2012-05-10
D.1 Preston v. Marathon Oil Co.Preston v. Marathon Oil Co. reasons that an intellectual-property assignment that does not affect the employee's right to earn a living or restrain trade escapes Wyoming's non-compete rules — making restraint-of-trade scrutiny the operative frame when a trailing clause does restrain.
Given that the intellectual property assignment agreement did not affect Mr. Preston's right to earn a living or otherwise impose an improper restraint on trade, Hopper does not govern our decision in this case.
See Preston v. Marathon Oil Co., 2012 WY 66, 277 P.3d 81 (Wyo. 2012).
Case law · 1993-10-01
D.4 Hopper v. All Pet Animal Clinic, Inc.Hopper v. All Pet Animal Clinic states Wyoming's common-law reasonableness elements for covenants not to compete — the framework governing pre-July 1, 2025 contracts and any holdover clause analyzed as a restraint.
A valid and enforceable covenant not to compete requires a showing that the covenant is: (1) in writing; (2) part of a contract of employment; (3) based on reasonable consideration; (4) reasonable in durational and geographical limitations; and (5) not against public policy.
See Hopper v. All Pet Animal Clinic, Inc., 861 P.2d 531 (Wyo. 1993).
Primary law
D.2 Wyo. Stat. § 1-23-108(a)PDFWyo. Stat. § 1-23-108(a) voids covenants not to compete that restrict any person's right to receive compensation for skilled or unskilled labor, for contracts entered into on or after July 1, 2025 — the statutory layer a post-2025 holdover clause must clear if it operates as a covenant not to compete.
Any covenant not to compete that restricts the right of any person to receive compensation for performance of skilled or unskilled labor shall be void.
See Wyo. Stat. § 1-23-108(a) (2025) (SF 107, Enrolled Act No. 87).
Primary law
D.5 SF 107 § 2(b)PDFSF 107 § 2(b) preserves contracts entered into before July 1, 2025, so pre-2025 assignment agreements and holdover clauses continue to be analyzed under Wyoming common law.
Nothing in this act shall be construed to alter, amend or impair any contract or agreement entered into before July 1, 2025.
See S.F. 107, Enrolled Act No. 87, § 2(b), 68th Leg., Gen. Sess. (Wyo. 2025).
Primary law
D.6 Wyo. Stat. § 1-23-108(a)(ii)PDFWyo. Stat. § 1-23-108(a)(ii) exempts covenants to the extent they protect trade secrets as defined by the criminal-code definition in W.S. 6-3-501(a)(xi) — the trade-secret path for a post-2025 holdover clause.
Any covenant not to compete to the extent the covenant provides for the protection of trade secrets as defined by W.S. 6-3-501(a)(xi);
See Wyo. Stat. § 1-23-108(a)(ii) (2025) (SF 107, Enrolled Act No. 87).
Primary law
D.7 Wyo. Stat. § 1-23-108(a)(iv)PDFWyo. Stat. § 1-23-108(a)(iv) exempts executive and management personnel and their professional staff from the statutory void rule — materially narrowing the ban for the senior R&D population most likely to face holdover clauses.
Executive and management personnel and officers and employees who constitute professional staff to executive and management personnel.
See Wyo. Stat. § 1-23-108(a)(iv) (2025) (SF 107, Enrolled Act No. 87).
Case law · 2022-02-25
D.8 Hassler v. Circle C ResourcesHassler v. Circle C Resources abolishes blue-pencil modification in Wyoming — an unreasonable restraint is void in its entirety, not judicially trimmed, which sets the downside for an overbroad holdover clause characterized as a restraint.
We conclude it is no longer tenable for courts to use the blue pencil rule to modify unreasonable noncompete agreements.
See Hassler v. Circle C Resources, 2022 WY 28, 505 P.3d 169 (Wyo. 2022).
Primary law
D.9 Wyo. Stat. § 6-3-501(a)(xi)PDFWyo. Stat. § 6-3-501(a)(xi) supplies the criminal-code trade-secret definition that the § 1-23-108(a)(ii) exception incorporates — the definition a trade-secret-tied holdover clause must actually track.
"Trade secret" means the whole or a portion or phase of a formula, pattern, device, combination of devices or compilation of information which is for use, or is used in the operation of a business and which provides the business an advantage or an opportunity to obtain an advantage over those who do not know or use it.
See Wyo. Stat. § 6-3-501(a)(xi).
Case law · 2012-07-10
D.10 Preston v. Marathon Oil Co. (Fed. Cir.)The Federal Circuit's companion Preston decision holds that hereby-assign language is an express present assignment of future inventions that transfers rights automatically, without any additional act.
it is an express assignment of rights in future inventions that automatically assigned rights to Marathon without the need for any additional act.
See Preston v. Marathon Oil Co., 684 F.3d 1276 (Fed. Cir. 2012).
Case law · 2012-05-10
D.11 Preston v. Marathon Oil Co.Preston v. Marathon Oil Co. holds that continued at-will employment is sufficient consideration for an intellectual-property-assignment agreement, with no additional consideration required.
no additional consideration is required to support an employee's post-employment execution of an agreement to assign intellectual property to his employer.
See Preston v. Marathon Oil Co., 2012 WY 66, 277 P.3d 81 (Wyo. 2012).
Case law · 1993-10-01
D.12 Hopper v. All Pet Animal Clinic, Inc.Hopper v. All Pet Animal Clinic requires separate consideration for a non-compete signed by an existing employee — a rule that survives Hassler and still governs the restraint half of a hybrid agreement.
We believe strong public policy favors separate consideration.
See Hopper v. All Pet Animal Clinic, Inc., 861 P.2d 531 (Wyo. 1993).
Draft a Wyoming trailing clause so it never has to be defended as a restraint. Keep it short and tied to inventions conceived during employment or derived from the employer's trade secrets — for contracts entered into on or after July 1, 2025, a clause that operates as a covenant not to compete survives only to the extent it protects trade secrets as defined by the criminal-code definition in Wyo. Stat. § 6-3-501(a)(xi), so tracking that specific definition, not a generic confidentiality recital, is what earns the exception. Use present-assignment (hereby assigns) language so title to future inventions passes automatically rather than resting on a promise to assign later . And draft to the minimum scope the business interest requires, because Wyoming courts will not trim an overbroad restraint — after Hassler, a clause found unreasonable is void in its entirety .
Do not paper a mid-employment rollout of a combined assignment-plus-non-compete agreement on continued employment alone. In Wyoming the two halves have different consideration rules — continued at-will employment supports an intellectual-property assignment , but a non-compete signed by an existing employee requires separate consideration — so a hybrid agreement can have its restraint provisions fail for lack of consideration even while the assignment stands.