The project aims to evaluate the legal impact of employment relationship on intellectual property rights, especially on copyright. This is being done through exploring the differences and commonalities among the relevant regulations of Turkey, Germany and the U.S in the fields of copyright law and patent law.
Last Update: 20.07.16
The notion of employment relationship constitutes an exception to the basic rule of intellectual property law which considers the creator as the first and sole owner of the rights on a work or invention. The relevant intellectual property (IP) laws stipulate rules on the automatic transfer of rights to employers. However, the scope and content of the legal regulations do not have the same nature. For instance in Turkey, whereas the Patent Decree Law No. 551 contains numerous articles concerning employees’ inventions, only one paragraph exists in the Law on Intellectual and Artistic Works (LIA) which regulates Turkish copyright law. Another difference relates to the consideration to be given to the employee in return for the transfer of rights.
Due to the above mentioned difference some questions arise, such as “is there any conceptual, historical or economic reason to regulate differently the results of employment relationship in the separate areas of intellectual property law?” or “is it possible to apply an article regulating employees’ inventions by analogy to fill the gaps in the field of copyright law?” In addition to these questions focusing on the differences, there are also common questions which need to be answered, such as “under which conditions is it necessary to avoid applying the main rule of automatic transfer of rights due to the content or the nature of the contract of employment or service?” or “how does the dissolution of the employer company influence the ownership on the rights?”.
This project, as a Ph.D. thesis, aims to find answers to the mentioned and other important questions, especially by exploring the similar regulations and related cases in the laws of the chosen countries. At this point, it should be noted that the subject of the research project has a strong relationship with different areas of law such as law of obligations, commercial law and labor law. This project is analyzing all relevant questions with an overarching perspective based on the point of view of intellectual property law.
In conclusion, it should be emphasized that employers and employees need to clearly define the scope of their rights, particularly in the field of copyright law. However, current regulations do not provide the necessary legal certainty. This confusing situation creates uncertainties especially regarding commercial agreements made by employers concerning creations of their employees. Therefore, relevant IP regulations have to be analyzed, interpreted and clarified and also amendments or new regulations that might be more suitable for the nature of employment relationships have to be proposed if it is necessary.
The project consists of four chapters, the first one analyzes the economic aspects of the relevant regulations; the second chapter focuses on the requirements for the transfer of rights; the third chapter is about exceptional cases and the last chapter explains the scope of the transmitted rights and the limits of that transfer. Currently, the applicable regulations in Germany and the US have been analyzed and the project will be finalized by the end of the year.
Eda Çataklar
Dr. Kaya Köklü
Prof. Dr. İlhan Helvacı
Justierung der Binnengrenzen und Systemvereinheitlichung im Immaterialgüterrecht
