STAND. COM. REP. NO.  494-08

Honolulu, Hawaii

                , 2008

RE:   H.B. No. 2911

Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Fourth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2008

State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committee on Labor & Public Employment, to which was referred H.B. No. 2911 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO EMPLOYEES,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this bill is to protect the rights of innovative employees by invalidating any provision in an employment agreement that requires employees to assign their rights to an invention to the employer when the employees develop the invention entirely on their own time and with their own materials.

     An individual testified in support of this bill.

     It is generally understood that employees who develop and patent an invention that was conceived and perfected during their hours of employment or with the use of an employer's materials must give the employer a license to use their invention.  However, some employers require employees to sign over their rights to any invention created during their period of employment with that particular employer, regardless of when the invention was created. Your Committee finds that inventions created entirely outside of the scope of an employee's employment should not fall under this category.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Labor & Public Employment that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2911 and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Labor & Public Employment,

____________________________

ALEX M. SONSON, Chair