Getting in touch with a lawyer for doing the job you are expected to do is not a good idea according to me.

While selling a product for a high price can have many advantages, producing it at 1/15th the price doesn't force you to sell it cheaper. It just means more margins for the company.

"Your idea belongs to the company, so pay a lawyer lots of money to tell you it belongs to the company" is possibly the worst advice I have ever heard.

That's especially the case if you get a semi-shady lawyer, and their advice is to get into a long and fruitless legal battle where you have all of the disadvantages and will inevitably lose after paying the lawyer a significant amount of money.

+1 There is a lot of money that could be involved. I personally find it preferable to get advice from someone with experience and that know the laws instead of risking to have remorse all your life.

This is truly terrible advice. It costs nothing for OP to familiarize themselves with French laws on rights of inventors (preferably from a public library computer, leave no audit trail). It also costs nothing for OP to go get themselves a job at another company with an inventor compensation program, a salary increase and deferred start date, to give themselves several months to formalize their future idea in a legally clean way. But if French laws are that restrictive and the idea genuinely is that good (hard to verify without disclosing), best to move to a more inventor-friendly jurisdiction

@smci actually yours is the terrible advice.IP,copyright and patent laws are highly complex and OP needs clarity ant certainty,that they can ONLY GET FROM PROFESSIONALS.i.e LAWYERS!Moving to another country might not be an option either and would add further difficulties in any case.

@MatthewRead OP needs to know for certain if in their case that would apply. After all, if OP worked on the idea in private time without company property and there are no clauses in their contract that relate to OP's situation that law might not apply at all.I doubt that any private thought in private time belongs to the employer.The law OP was citing might have been misunderstood by OP as a layman and OP is in need of professional advice and can't rely on internet forums or own research as another comment suggests.My advice is probably the best OP can get,resulting in certainty and clarity!

In this situation, in France, getting a lawyer is utterly ridiculous. I'm willing to believe that it's the right thing in the US, but in France, it isn't. At this point, in France, if you want advice in this situation, talk to someone from a union.

@Gilles french law and lawyers aren't any different from others.It's always best to talk to a professional who knows and understands the topic at hand.Speaking to a union representative helps with the employee perspective but unless they're also a lawyer,it's utterly useless for binding legal advice on patent,IP,licensing and copyright laws and ownership of ideas in OP's case!As I said,OP shouldn't go for a raise(bad idea) but for payment(s)/licensing,requiring lawyers.Plus,even if OP goes for a raise,that contract,intertwined with the idea should be looked at by a lawyer as well.

Once again, no, this is probably good advice in the US but in France, involving a lawyer to negotiate a raise or to file a patent is absurd. It would cost more than the benefits and nobody does it. There is no call for binding legal advice here. The right time to involve a lawyer is if it turns out that the employer has probably done something illegal, and possibly not even then.

@Gilles get out of here!You try to tell me that inquiring about patents,IP and copyright laws and ownership is done without contacting lawyers in France?! The ones that know..the law...professionally?!who do YOU ask?seriously,YOU're being absurd!considering the laws OP needs to know about, to make the smartest decision or to hear OP has no case,OP needs a lawyer.The right time to involve lawyers btw. is BEFORE and DURING contract negotiations.That's their bread and butter aside from court cases.OP wants to negotiate for a raise by offering an idea.without legal assistance OP will crash'n burn

@Gilles I'm not in the US btw.and it is common in any country with the rule of law to ask and / or hire those that studied the law and work professionally...as lawyers...if OP's idea really is as much worth as OP said, there are high stakes at play and without lawyers OP could lose big time.I'm not a big fan of lawyers FYI but they are often needed and one is too often doomed without them as laws tend to be very complex and interconnected.

In France, an avocat (the usual translation for “lawyer”) is not involved at all when filing a patent (people who do that are conseillers en propriété intellectuelle and would not be competent on labor law which is what this question is mainly about), when signing a work contract as an employee (all a lawyer could tell you is “yup, this is legal”, and the employer has pretty much all the risk there, so what the employee needs is negotiation advice, not legal advice), when writing a will (that's a notaire), ... It's not a matter of “rule of law”, it's societies that work differently.

@Gilles also,lawyers don't just nod a contract off.They give advice on implications of clauses and why or if they should be added or removed.Depending on the situation,especially for higher management contracts lawyers are needed because the contract gets very complex with responsibilities,liabilities,security concerns,non disclosure and non compete clauses etc., just to name the most common.Laymen usually can't understand or fully grasp most of these and it is important to have legal advice.Sometimes lawyers negotiate on contracts for weeks or months,even for "normal" employment contracts.

And once again, no, that's not how it works in France. Please don't automatically generalize what happens in your country to the rest of the world. The world is more diverse than you appear to think. In France, in this situation, the right person to contact is a legal expert (who is probably not a lawyer) at a union.

@Gilles France must be on another planet or it's just you.I lived and worked in many countries in north america and europe and in all of these my advice makes the most sense to get certainty,clarity and the best possible contract.I also said,OP needs an expert who professionally studied law.If for some reason the best to contact in OP's situation should not be a lawyer but some other professional then OP should obviously adapt my advice for their country.But I remain that OP needs professional advice!Also,law ultimately is the field of lawyers and judges and notaries and related professions...

@Gilles also I don't see how you conclude I wouldn't appreciate different cultures.It has nothing to do with diversity but with knowledge about most countries.For all we know I could be french,of multiple ethnic origin even an alien and you could not be french at all but a nigerian prince.And that's my point.We're on the internet and OP needs professional advice.So if those in OP's country that studied the law and are legally allowed to give legal advice are called "Fairy Godmothers" then OP needs to seek an audience with "Fairy Godmothers" for all I care.OP would know better than an alien.

“France must be on another planet”??? Whoa, way to insult a whole country.

@Gilles there was no room to say" judging by what you said."you know that wasn't an insult.in fact I quite like france,its people and culture and my experience never was as many keep saying about the french.my experience so far was positive...so far.thanks for giving me a glimpse(which I refuse to accept as general rule based on my experience) provided you're actually french.which leads me to: now I know you're just trolling me oh my nigerian prince...