Rights to Service-Related Works and Inventions in Russia

1) Who owns the rights to service-related works and service inventions created by an employee in the course of their employment?

Under Article 1295 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, with respect to a work made for hire (служебное произведение), the author's moral rights — namely, the right of authorship and the right to be named as the author — belong at all times to the employee and are inalienable, whereas the exclusive right, i.e. the right to use and dispose of the work, vests by default in the employer, unless otherwise provided by the employment contract or any other agreement between the employee and the employer. 

In turn, with respect to a service invention, utility model, or industrial design, Article 1370 of the Civil Code establishes that the right of authorship remains with the employee and is inalienable, while the right to obtain a patent and the exclusive right vest by default in the employer, unless otherwise provided by an agreement between the employer and the employee.

2) What criteria determine whether a work or invention qualifies as service-related?

Under Russian law, the decisive criterion for classifying a work or invention as made for hire is that it was created within the scope of the employee's labor duties, rather than merely during working hours or with the use of the employer's equipment. In practice, courts assess the following factors:

• whether the obligation to create such subject matter is expressly fixed in the employment contract or job description, or whether the employee was given a specific written work assignment by the employer;
• whether the created subject matter corresponds to the employee's professional functions and the employer's field of activity;
• whether the employer's working time, resources, or materials were used in the creation process (this is a corroborating factor, but not decisive on its own).

Where, however, a work or invention is created on the employee's own initiative, outside the scope of their official duties, or in their free time, without any assignment from the employer, it will not be deemed made for hire, and the rights thereto will belong to the employee.

3) Which rights automatically vest in the employer and which require a separate assignment?

As a general rule, only the exclusive right to a work made for hire vests automatically in the employer, unless the employment contract or a civil-law agreement provides otherwise; \

The employer also has the right to make public an official work, unless otherwise provided by the contract with the employee (clause 4, Article 1295 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation).

Such moral rights as the right of authorship, the author's right to a name, the right to inviolability of a work, the right to remuneration for a work for hire, and the right to follow may not be alienated to an employer. 

With respect to a service invention, both the exclusive right and the right to obtain a patent vest in the employer, the right of authorship remains with the inventor.

Separate written formalization is generally required where the parties wish to depart from this default regime - for instance, to vest the exclusive right in the author, to assign it to the employer by agreement, to grant a license, or to establish the amount, terms, and procedure for payment of remuneration where these are not otherwise settled by law.

4) Is an employer required to compensate an employee for a service invention or service-related work?

The employer is obliged to pay remuneration for the work for hire to the employee if, within three years from the date on which the work was made available to the employer it begins using the work, transfers the exclusive right to another person, or decides to keep the official work secret and informs the author about it. If the amount of remuneration, conditions and procedure for its payment by the employer are not specified in a contract with the employee, in the event of a dispute they are determined by the court (clause 2 of art. 1295 Civil Code of the Russian Federation). 

For a service invention, the employer is obliged to pay remuneration to the author in the cases provided for in Clause 4 of Article 1370 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, including when the employer receives a patent, keeps the information secret and notifies the employee about it, transfers the right to obtain a patent to another person or does not receive a patent for reasons beyond his control. If there is no separate agreement on the amount and procedure of payments between the employer and employee, the Rules approved by the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated 05/30/2026 No. 654, effective from September 1, 2026 and valid until September 1, 2032.

5) What documents should be put in place to establish and protect an employer’s rights to service-related works and service inventions? What intellectual property provisions should be included in an employment agreement?

The documents confirming the creation of a work or invention within the scope of an employee's work obligations are an employment contract, a job description; an official assignment and an act of acceptance and transfer of the work are also drawn up. 

An employment contract with an employee should explicitly provide that the employee's work functions include creating the results of intellectual activity.

In addition, the employment contract usually specifies:

• the procedure, amount and conditions of payment of employee's remuneration for the use of a work for hire / service invention;
• the procedure for notifying an employee of an employer about the creation of a work for hire/service invention.

The author's consent to use the service related works without specifying the author's name and to make any changes and additions to the work by the employer may also be included in the employment contract.

6) How are rights to service-related works and service inventions allocated within multinational corporate groups and in cross-border employment relationships?

Russian legislation proceeds from the fact that the official nature of the result of intellectual activity is determined not by the employer's membership in an international group of companies, but by the existence of an employment relationship between the employee and a specific employer.

If an employee is in an employment relationship with a Russian legal entity (for example, a subsidiary of an international holding company), it is this legal entity that is recognized as an employer for the purposes of Articles 1295 and 1370 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation (as indicated in answer 1 above). The very fact of the existence of a non-Russian parent company or other affiliated companies does not automatically mean that they have exclusive rights to the service-related results of intellectual activity. 

After the employer has acquired the exclusive right, it may be transferred to another company of the group, including a foreign one. Such a transfer is no longer carried out automatically, but on the basis of a civil law transaction:

• an agreement on the alienation of an exclusive right (Article 1234 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation); or 
• a license agreement (Article 1235 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation).

Corporate affiliation of companies is not in itself a necessity for registration of the transfer of rights to works for hire and service inventions. Thus, the Intellectual Property Rights Court of the Russian Federation stated in its decision dated 15.10.2025 in case No. SIP-1237/2024 that the registration of patents directly for a foreign company without following the procedure established by Articles 1370 and 1373 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation is unlawful.

The greatest difficulties arise in the case of cross-border employment. In such situations, it is necessary to distinguish between two independent issues.

First, the law governing labor relations is defined. Usually, either the law chosen by the parties to the employment contract is applied, or the law of the state in which the employee usually performs the labor function, taking into account the mandatory rules of the relevant jurisdiction.

Secondly, the law governing the creation and protection of intellectual property rights is defined.

In private international law, the lex loci protectionis principle is traditionally applied — the law of the country for which legal protection of the result of intellectual activity is sought. As a result, conflicts may arise: the same object may be recognized as a service related work under Russian law, but it may be regulated differently in the state where the patent is sought or copyright protection is carried out. Differences may relate to criteria for recognizing a result as service-related, the procedure for transferring rights to an employer, the timing of notification to the employer, and other requirements of national legislation.

7) What risks arise if an employment agreement does not contain provisions governing service-related works and service inventions?

In the event of a dispute over the rights to a work for hire/service work, in the absence of relevant provisions in the employment contract, the employer will need to prove with other documents and other evidence that the creation of this work was within the scope of the employee's work duties, and the technical solution was created in connection with the fulfillment of work duties or a specific task of the employer (Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated 04/23/2019 No. 10, p. 104, p.129). 

8) Can an employee claim rights to a work or invention created outside working hours using the employer’s resources or while working remotely?

A work created by an employee cannot be recognized as a work for hire only on the grounds that the employee used the employer's materials to create the work.

In the event of a dispute over the rights to a work the court finds that the employee did not create the work within the framework of his/her work duties, such a work will not be considered for hire  – the exclusive right to it belongs to the employee, and the employer can only use the work on the basis of a separate agreement with the employee and subject to payment of remuneration (Intellectual Property Court Ruling dated 08/18/2020 No. C01-44/2019, A40-256611/2017).

An invention created by an employee using the employer's monetary, technical or other material resources, but not in connection with the performance of his/her work duties or a specific task of the employer, as established by clause 5 of Article 1370 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, is not deemed a service invention and the right to obtain a patent and the exclusive right to such an invention belong to the employee. The employer has the right, at its discretion, to demand either a gratuitous simple (non-exclusive) license to use the invention for its own needs for the entire term of the exclusive right thereto or reimbursement of expenses incurred by the employer in connection with the creation of such an invention.

9) How can an employer protect its rights when the creator of a service-related work or invention leaves the company?

The dismissal of the author does not terminate the employer's exclusive right to a properly executed official work or an official invention. However, if the fulfillment of work obligations or assignments was not proven during creation, the former employee may challenge the official nature of the result.

It is advisable for an employer to conduct an audit upon dismissal of an employee:

• compare the employment contract, job description and official assignments with each created result of intellectual activity;
• to establish which object was created, by whom, on what dates, within the framework of which project and in what objective form;
• record the transfer of repositories, source files, documentation, mockups, experimental data, laboratory logs, access keys, and accounts;
• issue an act of transfer of results, material media and accesses with a detailed description of each object;
• save evidence of creation: commit history, task tracker, corporate correspondence, file versions, metadata, reports.

With respect to service inventions, before or immediately after the employee's dismissal, the employer needs also to:

• register all employee notifications about technical solutions received prior to dismissal;
• make a documented decision on each object: to patent, transfer the right to obtain a patent, or keep the information secret;
• notify the employee in writing of the decision, if the trade secret regime is chosen;
• pay the remuneration in cases established by clause 4 of Article 1370 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation and the Rules approved by Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated 16.11.2020 No. 184.

After dismissal, the employer should terminate the former employee's access to corporate IT systems, take inventory of downloads and external transfers, preserve digital evidence, and file a reasoned claim if the use of a service related work or invention is detected.

10) How does the use of artificial intelligence (AI) systems affect the legal treatment of service-related works and service inventions created by employees?

The use of artificial intelligence systems does not directly change the rules of Articles 1295 and 1370 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, however, it significantly affects the possibility of applying these norms, since it raises the question of the existence of the intellectual property object itself and its author. The service regime applies only to results that are objects of intellectual property rights.

The creative work of the author is necessary for the works (Articles 1257, 1259 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation).  For inventions, the author can also only be an individual whose creative work has created a technical solution (art. 1347 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). 

According to paragraph 80 of the Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. 10 dated 23.04.2019, the creative, not technical nature of the work is necessary for the protection of the work. This logic applies by analogy to results created primarily by means of AI: if the employee's contribution is limited to the formulation of a request (prompt) without subsequent creative processing of the result, the question of the existence of an object of copyright and, accordingly, the applicability of art. 1295 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, becomes controversial.

If artificial intelligence is used only as an auxiliary tool, and the employee independently formulates a creative task, makes a significant selection of options, processes the result, and makes creative decisions, then the work can be recognized as created by the creative work of the employee. That is, the use of generative AI by itself does not prevent the emergence of an official product.

If AI is used in conducting research, modeling technical solutions, or analyzing data, but the final technical solution is the result of an employee's creative activity, authorship remains with the person, and the official regime continues to operate. If the technical solution is actually formed automatically without human creative input, there is a risk of denial of recognition of authorship and, consequently, difficulties in obtaining patent protection, since the current Russian legislation does not recognize artificial intelligence as a subject of law.

The practical feature of using AI is to complicate the burder of proof for an employer. Therefore, internal corporate procedures are becoming increasingly important: recording prompts, editing history, interim versions, change logs, service assignments and other materials that allow us to determine the amount of human creative contribution.

Authors: Yana Dianova, Vladislava Novokreshchenova, Aleksandra Levenkova, Natalia Burnaevskaya