Searching for Today’s Purpose of Remunerating Employee Inventions Through Grounded Theory

Czech Republic and other European countries reward inventive employees by specific reward regulated usually by patent law. There is a controversy how much such a reward should be. The authors used grounded theory approach to discover the purpose of remunerating employee inventions today. Based on interactions of respondents with legal experience, we identify the interests of key stakeholders – employees, employers, and state. We explore and balance these interests and identify solid reasonableness of such a reward especially in enhancing the transfer of knowledge from employees to employers. Thus, we suggest employers, whose business is based on innovations, to implement a level of rewards that would be at least incentive for employees to pass inventive ideas to employers. The analysis is based on Czech and Slovak legal framework; however, the results are general in nature and can have implications in other countries as well.