Protection of the right arising from employee inventions in the context of private law relationship within the framework of patent and trade secret provisions

The possibility of claiming rights granted to the employer by law in the regulations regarding employee inventions results in the employee taking over the rights arising from the service invention. The assignment of the rights by the employer gives rise to the employer's obligation to pay reasonable remuneration to the employee and to protect the invention through a patent application. The employee invention, depending on the employer's choice, may be protected by patent or by the provisions on trade secrets, if the conditions set forth in the law are met. In the regulations on employee inventions, patent protection is regulated as a rule while trade secret protection is regulated as an exception. Therefore, it is necessary to reveal the conditions, provisions and consequences of trade secret protection in the context of employee inventions, which are regulated indirectly and limitedly in the legislation. In this study, within the framework of the primary obligations of the employer arising from the acquisition of the rights arising from the employee invention, the provisions and consequences of the invention being subject to patent protection as a rule or trade secret protection as an exception has been examined.