By Albert Wong (May 17, 2018, 12:18 PM EDT) -- In the U.S., as a legal default rule (in the absence of private contracting), an inventor retains patent rights to any patentable inventions she creates, including inventions created during work hours using her employer's property and inventions created using federal funds. The only exception to the default rule is if an inventor was specifically hired by her employer to create an invention (analogous to the work-for-hire doctrine in copyright law). Unsurprisingly, sophisticated companies typically opt out of this employee-friendly default rule by contractually requiring their employees to relinquish their rights to any inventions they may create during their employment. Pre-invention assignment agreements (PIAAs) typically require employees to disclose any inventions they create to their employer, assist their employer in securing patent rights to the inventions, and legally assign the patent rights to their employer....