Who has ownership rights in anything written, composed, produced or invented during the course of employment?
Unless there is agreement between the parties otherwise, an employer will have ownership of the copyright of anything written, composed or produced in the scope of an employee’s employment. A columnist may have a contract with his or her newspaper that would permit him or her to publish collected volumes of the employee’s columns. Without that right, the copyright of all such columns or articles would belong to the newspaper. An aeronautical engineer employed by an aircraft company to develop and improve their aircraft systems would have no rights in anything he developed -the patents would belong to the employer. A drug company employing a research chemist would own all patent rights to any new drug developed by the research employee. A composer of music employed by a motion picture studio to write music for films would not own the rights in such music unless his contract provided for it. However, if the newspaper columnist invented a new electronic device, any patent rights would bel
