Who owns the rights to inventions developed for a client if there are no prior agreements regarding those inventions?

The rights to inventions developed for a client generally belong to the client, especially in the absence of prior agreements. This principle is grounded in the expectation that when a professional is engaged to create a product or solution for a client, the resultant intellectual property (IP) is part of the deliverables that the client is entitled to own.

In many professional services, including engineering and consulting, the client typically pays for the expertise and resources used in the development of the creation. This transaction implies that the fruits of the work—the inventions that arise from that engagement—are the property of the client. This ensures that clients are able to fully utilize, protect, and benefit from the work completed on their behalf.

Ownership nuances can vary based on specific contracts or agreements, but without any established arrangements or contracts that explicitly assign ownership elsewhere, the default position is that the client holds the rights to the inventions. In situations where the inventor is employed by a company, there may be circumstances under which the company holds rights, typically governed by employment agreements or company policies, but that is contingent on pre-existing contractual terms.