The Protection of Employee Inventions on Private Employment Relationship in Pharmaceutical Industry in Indonesia

Abstract

The reciprocal relationship between company and employees such as in the pharmaceutical industry then creates a dilemma for solving the problem regarding the employee responsibility to the company, and company recognition for employee invention. This paper will discuss and analyze the problems of employee ownership of inventions in patent law regime in Indonesia, compared with those in developed countries. In Indonesia, the settings of employee inventions are not dealt explicitly in Indonesian patent law such as in the Patent Law of 1986 and the latest, the Patent Law of 2016. The Law set implicitly that employee inventions are inventions that resulted in employment status or inventions generated using the employer’s data and facilities. The results showed that the settings of ownership of employee inventions that clearly rely on the doctrine of hired to invent and shop-rights which was adopted in the advanced industrial countries prove to be conducive to create a supportive climate of innovation and the progress of scientific and technological invention by workers, and by the company. The concept of employee inventions that have not been expressly provided in the Patent Law of 2016 and has not yet adopted the doctrine of hired to invent or shop rights is considered more profitable to employers or companies, than to employees, to have exclusive rights to the patent and exploit freely on the invention produced.