The article L 611-7 of the French Industrial Property Code regulates the question of employees' inventions .
This article concerns the patentable inventions which were realized during the duration of the contract of employment.
The French law classifies the inventions realized by an employee in three categories:
- the inventions of mission realized during an inventive mission of the employee (invention of mission)
- the inventions realized outside the mission of the employee but attributable to the employer
- the inventions realized outside the mission of the employee and non attributable to the employer

We are going more particularly to be interested in the inventions of mission which have to be devolved automatically to the employer, and within the analysis of these inventions, we will be more specially interested in the question of the supplementary payment to the employee who realized an invention of mission.

The question is to know if an employee can or not claime for a supplementary payment for the inventions for which he was appointed as inventor, and if yes, which are the nature of this payment and the amount to which the employee can aspire. Finally, we shall study which is competent court in case of dispute on this point.

1 - First of all it is necessary to determine the applicable law in the relations that the employee had with his employer.
Indeed, in 1978, it was considered that the employee would have found in his work the counterpart of his searches and that he could not claim to a supplementary payment. This law foresaw that employee having realized an invention of mission "could benefit" from a "supplementary payment", and that the conditions in which this employee could benefit from it were determined by collective agreements, agreements at company level and individual working contracts. In other words, the supplementary payment was not a principle, but a faculty for the employer and it was necessary that it had been foreseen in the contract of employment or an agreement at company level or the collective agreement current in the date of the invention.
However, since 1990, the law made compulsory the payment of a supplementary payment to the employee having realized an invention of mission devolved to the employer. Today the principle is that the supplementary payment is compulsory, and that it should be being foreseen in the collective agreement or an agreement at company level or the contract of employment. According to the law applicable to a situation of invention of mission, the rights of the employee will not so be the same.

2 - On the other hand, the supplementary payment is considered by the jurisprudence (TGI Paris in December 20, 1985) as an extra payment, or a premium. The applicable prescription in the subject is so the same prescription as to the payment of salaries (Article 2277 of the civil code). This prescription is 5 years from the date by which the employee was recognized as inventor by the company.
However the contract of employment, or an agreement at company level, or the collective agreement applicable to the date of realization of the invention, can foresee an extension of the term of prescription of the action.
For example, it was judged (TGI Paris, in November 20, 1992) that when the collective agreement foresees that the amount of the payment is based on the exploitation of the patent, and the information of the employee of the beginning of the exploitation, then the prescription starts to count only since the inventor was duly informed.

3 - When the supplementary payment is foreseen in one of these documents, its amount is generally fixed to.
However, if no amount is fixed to it, the jurisprudence (Cass. Com in November 21, 2000) foresees the consideration of " the scientific interest, the difficulties of the practical settling of the invention, the importance of the personal contribution of the employee, as well as the economic interest of the invention " in the determination of the amount of such a payment.

4 - The dispute concerning employee's inventions will raise some competence of the Civil court. However, the hesitance remains as regards the competence to know of the allocation and the evaluation of the payment for the foreseen supplementary payment by the collective agreement for the inventor of an invention of mission. Certain decisions judged in favour of the competence of the tribunal competent in disputes concerning the relationships between employee and employers in what concerns the individual contract of employment. Other decisions decided for the competence of the Civil court.
The law offers however the possibility of referring the case to a special body called National Commission of Employees' Inventions ( CNIS) sitting with the French National Office of Industrial Property (INPI). This commission ows within six months, and after instruction of the case, present a proposition of conciliation. If this proposition is not disputed, by means of an appeal in front of the court, in the month of its announcement, it will be applied to the parties. If no agreement between the parties, or if no conciliation in front of the commission is found, the case should finally be referred to the Court to resolve this dispute.