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I entirely came up with a novel idea. I did all of the research indepently. Both my supervisors want to patent the idea now. It seems that I'm getting a smaller stake in the patent according to the filing papers (they didn't talk to me about this). I own 25%, they own 37.5% each.

I can't help to feel like I'm being swindled. The university is paying for patent costs. But, I came up with the idea entirely on my own. Also, this isn't related to my main research project. I just worked on it on the side - so they didn't have much contributions towards the overall idea [actually one of them had literally ZERO contribution to the original idea and just happened to be my supervisor at the time].

Should I say something or is this common?

getting_swindled
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    Most patents actually don't end up producing much money. If yours is one of these, you probably don't need to do anything. – Peter Shor Aug 06 '16 at 23:09
  • This one might generate a lot of money as the intent is to sell it. – getting_swindled Aug 06 '16 at 23:22
  • I just don't know if this is common or not. – getting_swindled Aug 06 '16 at 23:22
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    You probably signed an intellectual property agreement when you started working with these supervisors. That should explain what happens in this case. – mhwombat Aug 06 '16 at 23:33
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    If there is significant money at stake, you should consult a lawyer. When applying for patents as an employee, I was told that it was essential to get the inventor list accurate - listing a non-inventor or failing to list an inventor could endanger the validity of a patent. – Patricia Shanahan Aug 06 '16 at 23:43
  • I believe that under U.S. law, everybody whose name is on a patent is supposed to have made some contribution to the idea. If one of your supervisors didn't, this might invalidate the patent. In this case, the university's lawyers would certainly want to take his name off of it. You should check with the university's intellectual property office to see whether it's university policy that supervisors are allowed to take advantage of their underlings in this way. I suspect that it's not, and the intellectual property office might advise you on what to do. – Peter Shor Aug 07 '16 at 01:50
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    @mhwombat: In my experience, intellectual property agreements are almost always signed with the university, and not with an employee's supervisors. The university may be completely unaware that the OP is being taken advantage of, and may not approve of it. – Peter Shor Aug 07 '16 at 01:59
  • Any tips? They want it signed by Monday. I don't want to ruin our relationship. I just really feel like I'm being exploited. This was an idea I came up with on the side and told them about it: and they had a "HOLY SMOKES" reaction. I'm being pressured to sign, but I don't want to ruin relationships.. – getting_swindled Aug 07 '16 at 02:32
  • Care to mention in which Country this is happening? I understand that in North America it's very unlikely that any ownership will go to you, if you're a university affiliate. – Cape Code Aug 07 '16 at 07:20
  • @Cape Code: Some American universities split patent revenues 50/50 (or some other percentage) with the inventors. – Peter Shor Aug 23 '16 at 01:25

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You should read your university's intellectual property policy. If this matter is important to you, you should also consult a lawyer.

I think you are probably confusing the concepts of credit and ownership. The inventors get credit for creating the invention, but the owners have the right to exploit the patent. Most likely the university owns all of the patent and the inventors who are employees or students own none if it. The university may assign a portion of any profits to the inventors as an incentive. This would be entirely at the university's discretion, and would typically be described in a published policy.

Anonymous Physicist
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