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Arbitration Board under the Employee Inventions Act
The task of the Arbitration Board under the Employee Inventions Act is to amicably settle disputes between an employee who has made an invention within the scope of his employment and his employer. Usually, the parties must appeal to the Arbitration Board before bringing the case before the court. Arbitration proceedings are, above all, about appropriate compensation for the employee if the employer has filed a patent or utility model application for the employee's invention and exploits the invention.
The Arbitration Board consists of a three-member panel: a legal expert, who is the chairman, and two DPMA patent examiners specialised in the relevant technological field.
To resolve the dispute, the Board submits settlement proposals to the parties. The parties may accept them as binding, but they may also object to the proposals or conclude a settlement outside the office.
Information on the request for arbitration proceedings and about the proceedings is available in the 
information leaflet of the Arbitration Board.
Inspections of decisions
Contact
Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt
Schiedsstelle nach dem Gesetz über Arbeitnehmererfindungen
80297 München, Germany
Phone: +49 89 2195-3936
Fax: +49 89 2195-4432
The proceedings before the Arbitration Board are confidential proceedings held in closed session at the authority. Therefore, non-participating parties may not inspect the files or settlement proposals of arbitration proceedings.
Nonetheless, employers and employees as well as their representatives have a legitimate interest in knowing the past decisions of the Arbitration Board.
Since its establishment in 1957, the Arbitration Board has regularly published selected decisions anonymised in varying media and thus made the arbitration decisions accessible to the groups concerned.
The Arbitration Board will continue this practice and makes selected decisions anonymised available online as PDF documents. Decisions as of mid-2012 are provided in full text.
The Arbitration Board will gradually provide the headnotes of earlier decisions.
Here you can look for decisions of the Arbitration Board.
Information leaflet, legislation and guidelines to download
- Information on proceedings before the Arbitration Board under the Employee Inventions Act (Information leaflet)
- Act on Employee Inventions, new version: applicable to inventions which were reported to the employer on 1 October 2009 or later
- Act on Employee Inventions (Gesetz über Arbeitnehmererfindungen), new version (in German): applicable to inventions which were reported to the employer on 1 October 2009 or later
- Act on Employee Inventions (Gesetz über Arbeitnehmererfindungen), old version (in German): applicable to inventions which were reported to the employer on 30 September 2009 or earlier
- Richtlinien für die Vergütung von Arbeitnehmererfindungen (in German) (Guidelines on the compensation for employee inventions)
Picture: iStock.com/Choreograph
Last updated: 2 February 2023
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