1.   The right to apply for compensation is undoubtedly lost if the employer chooses not to seek to patent an invention which is nonetheless patentable.

2.   For example, the employer may be shown to have an increased order book after the invention has been patented.

3.   IBM regularly patents more inventions than any other U.S. company.

4.   It encouraged universities to patent inventions, and then assign the rights to those patents to private companies that could develop them into products.

5.   So did the world-class pitcher ever patent any inventions of his own?

6.   Some of these are suckered by con artists, including sham companies that promise to market and patent their inventions.

7.   They later patented their invention.

8.   This landmark legislation allowed universities for the first time to patent inventions that flowed from federally funded research.

9.   Under current law, companies that rely on unpatented trade secrets run the risk that someone else will patent their invention and charge them royalties.

10.   In the United States, however, there is a one-year grace period in which a published invention can be patented.