The Ministry of Defense filed a lawsuit against the leading design engineer of the Ryazan State Instrument Factory

On February 18, the IP Court received a statement of claim from the Prosecutor General's Office and the Ministry of Defense against Vladimir German, a design engineer at the Ryazan State Instrument Factory. The third parties in the case are JSC "State Ryazan Instrument Plant", JSC "Mil and Kamov National Helicopter Center" and Rospatent.

Inventor Vladimir German created an official invention, which was given the status of "production secret" by the instrument factory. According to Herman, the Ministry of Defense disputes the right to possess a patent for the invention of a method for locating targets with a radar system mounted on a rotary-wing aircraft.

A production secret (or know-how) is information of any kind, whether industrial, technical, economic or organizational, about the results of intellectual activity in the scientific and technical field and about ways of carrying out professional activities that the copyright holder keeps secret from third parties, usually in order to gain competitive advantages and profit, commented Sergey Zuykov, Patent Attorney, Managing Partner of Zuykov and partners. Such information has actual or potential commercial value precisely because it is unknown to third parties.

According to the provisions of the Civil Code, the right to an official production secret, as well as to an invention, belongs to the employer. However, Rospatent has issued several patents, the author of which is Vladimir German, and the patent holder is the Russian Federation represented by the Ministry of Defense. For what reason Vladimir German was personally identified as the author and patent holder of the disputed patent, whether the disputed patent was created as part of his official duties, and whether the patent should belong to Russia in this regard, will have to be clarified during the trial, Zuykov said.

The circumstances of the appearance of the information constituting the production secret are of key importance: if the know-how was created as part of the employee's performance of his duties to the employer, then, as in the case of an official work, the rights to the know-how belong to the employer. If this happened before being hired, or as part of an activity not related to the performance of duties under an agreement with an employer, directly to the inventor, Zuykov notes.

Source: RBC