The traditional (and stereotypical) view of Japanese workers is of loyal men and women, eager to please the paternal corporation in exchange for eternal job security.
A recent series of cases brings home a point I and probably many other lawyers make to clients and businesses with respect to the relationship between the company and the employee and the ideas those employees have while in the employ of the company.
The case are from Japan and this article set it out nicely. An enterprising chap, working for Hitachi, developed the technology to read CD's and DVD's in the early 1970's. He retired from Hitachi in 1996 and asked for about 2 million in compensation in 2004. Predictably Hitachi declined.
A few days ago the fellow was awarded the equivalent of 1.3 million in compensation. I have no knowledge at all about the laws of Japan, whether employment laws or IP laws but I suspect that there are going to be people in Japan examining the rights of employees in their ideas.
An employment contract should set such rights out explicitly in clear language. No contract? Here is hoping you never run into an issue - incidentally the issue need not be an employee who comes out of the woodwork to claims rights to something, it could be a lender of some sort doing due diligence in preparation for a round of financing asking for copies of the non-existent contracts, or a possible purchaser of IP asking for the same thing.
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