(Sample Agreement: Taken from Actual Contract Used Today in Industry)
NOTE: Never sign any agreement that sounds like this agreement. It is designed to strip an inventor of all his rights and protections. All underlined items have been deleted and generic equivalents have been substituted.
Dear Mr. INVENTOR'S NAME
Thank you for your letter received DATE A following your conversation with our offices on DATE B, WIDGETS, INC. has the following standard agreement we sign with inventors. We request you review and sign our agreement before we proceed any further.
CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT WITH INVENTOR
To The Inventor:
1. WIDGET, INC. urges you to take all steps necessary to protect your idea and to safeguard your interests. You should consult an attorney and file an application for a patent.
2. If you have filed for a patent, please send us a copy of just the drawings and specifications portion of the patent application, keeping the claims to yourself.
3. If you have not filed for a patent, please send us a complete written description of your idea. Please include any sketches, drawings, or photographs which would help us to understand and evaluate your idea. All your materials should be signed, dated and witnessed.
4. Please keep an identical copy of the material which you sent to us, so that both of us will know exactly what is involved.
5. During our evaluation of your idea, you agree not to disclose our potential interest or otherwise use our name without first getting written permission.
6. By evaluating your idea, we will not receive any rights to any patent you now have or may acquire.
7. We are not required to hold your idea in confidence, and no confidential relationship is being established between us.
8. By reviewing your idea, no agreement to compensate has been entered into by us, and you agree to rely solely upon your rights under the patent laws.
9. After reviewing your idea, we are not required to return it to you, since otherwise we would have no record of what was disclosed to us.
10. We are not required to tell you about our own developments, or of other ideas which have been submitted to us, or of ideas which are already in use by ourselves or our competitors.
11. If we are interested in your ideas and material, you will agree to negotiate with us for rights thereto.
12. All of these conditions apply as well to any other information which you may send to us about your disclosure.
