Question
What are the odds of a Japanese company using Article 35 in Japanese IP law to obtain a non-exclusive license from an employee’s patent if the patent is inside the scope of the company but not part of company work? Should employees be concerned about this?
Answers: 1 public & 0 private
"Employee invention" in the Article 35 of the Japanese patent Law must fall within the scope of the business of the employer, and must be achieved by an act(s) categorized as a present or past duty of the employee.
What you mean by "not part of company work" is not quite clear, but if it doesn't meet the requirement of "achieved by an act categorized as a present or past duty of the employee", the company won't obtain a free non-exclusive license. So, the answer is that the employees don't have to be concerned about this.
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