Anreizsysteme als Instrument des betrieblichen Innovationsmanagements

Institutionalized incentives for ingenuity—Patent value and the German Employees’ Inventions Act

“…One of the major findings is that 13 percent of the inventors are inadequately informed about the regulations of the Employees' Invention Act. Staudt et al (1992) confirm that employee-inventors have only partial knowledge of their rights.…”

“…The most important motives of inventing turned out to be "love of inventing", "desire to improve", and "financial gain" (Rossman 1931, 523f). The relevance of monetary incentives, in particular inventor compensation, was also confirmed by Staudt et al (1990) who conducted a survey of 522 employee-inventors. Respondents were drawn by random sampling from a list of all German patents published in 1987 and held by German applicants.…”

“…Moreover, Staudt et al (1992) find that 27.9 percent of the questioned inventors complain about superiors being mentioned in invention reports because of their hierarchical position, but not due to their contribution to the invention. The phenomenon of executives being included as co-inventors without having made a contribution to the invention is also reported by Brockhoff (1997) and Schmeisser (1986).…”

“…Results show that more than 70 percent of the inventors rank inventor compensation as important. Less important are advancement, trainings, or flexible working hours (Staudt et al 1990).…”

“…Furthermore, an increase in the number of co-inventors reduces compensation for every single inventor. The motivation within a research team may suffer from such disputes (Staudt et al 1992, Heimbach 1992. Moreover, the profitability of new products is also impacted by efforts made by employees other than inventors.…”