A new study from the Coller School of Management at Tel Aviv University sheds light for the first time on an important issue in the business world: employees withholding their inventions from the companies they work for. Although the law and/or employment contracts typically grant organizations the rights to their employees’ inventions, invention withholding is quite common. It carries serious implications for businesses, especially in knowledge-intensive industries. The study reveals alarming data: one out of every four employees in commercial organizations has withheld an invention from their employer at least once. In many cases, this withholding is done deliberately, with the intent to use the invention after leaving the organization. The research was led by Dr. Sarit Erez, in collaboration with Prof. Yaniv Shani and Prof. Abraham Carmeli from the Coller School of Management at Tel Aviv University. The study was published in the prominent journal Academy of Management Perspectives.

Dr. Erez explains: "Commercial organizations, particularly those in knowledge-intensive industries, encourage innovation among their employees, and their success largely depends on those employees coming up with groundbreaking inventions. To protect companies’ rights to these inventions, legal systems and standard employment contracts typically grant the employer ownership of inventions made by their employees, while requiring employees to disclose any invention they have come up with at work. This allows the employer to obtain patents and protect the invention. To increase employees’ motivation to disclose their inventions, many companies implement incentive systems, offering financial grants and/or recognition, such as badges of honor, to inventors. But at the end of the day, when an employee comes up with a new invention, they are faced with a behavioral dilemma: should they fulfill their legal obligation and disclose the invention to their employer, knowing they will lose ownership, or violate their obligation and hold on to the possibility of capitalizing on their invention outside the company? Indeed, it is a common scenario to see people leave one organization and either join another in the same field or even start their own company — often to develop an invention conceived in their previous workplace".

Video Credit: Dr. Sarit Erez.

Who Really Owns the Work You Create?

Dr. Erez continues: "These types of cases often end up in court, where an employer sues a former employee — or their new employer — alleging that they are using an invention that the employee conceived while working for them and that the patent rightfully belongs to the original employer. Having practiced law in the private sector for about 20 years, I often represented employees, employers, or employee organizations in disputes of this type. It became evident that the legal tools currently used to address this issue are not the most effective approach. I used to believe that management tools were designed to increase employees’ willingness to disclose their inventions and reduce their tendency to withhold them could be far more effective. But when I looked for academic research on this subject, I found only a handful, and even those focused mainly on the withholding of inventions in academia rather than in commercial organizations. It became clear to me that the issue of withholding inventions, which is so vital to the growth of knowledge-driven companies, had not yet been thoroughly explored in management strategy. With this study, we aimed to shed light on this important phenomenon and begin to address it from a business perspective".

For the study, the researchers distributed an anonymous online questionnaire, asking inventors to report whether they had ever withheld one or more inventions from their employers. Participants were also requested to describe the event, including its reasons and circumstances. A total of 199 valid responses were collected. Dr. Erez details the findings: "54 participants, or 27 percent of the respondents, reported withholding at least one invention from the organization in which they worked. Of these, 28 percent explicitly stated that they did so to develop the invention themselves after leaving the organization or bringing it as a sort of ‘dowry’ to their next employer. The others cited a variety of reasons, some psychological and some financial. These included an emotional attachment and sense of ownership over the invention as a personal creation; fear that someone else would take credit; conflict with their employer; lack of trust in management; dissatisfaction with pay; and the belief that they would not be adequately compensated for an invention that would profit the organization".

Changing the Work Culture

In the next phase, the researchers developed a unique and validated measurement scale, the first of its kind, to assess employees’ tendencies to either disclose or withhold inventions from their employers. The findings revealed that withholding or disclosing inventions are not simply opposite sides of the same behavior, but rather two fundamentally different behaviors: an employee might refrain from disclosing a certain invention for a variety of reasons (such as a heavy workload or the belief that the invention still requires development and is not ready to be disclosed). However, a deliberate and active decision to withhold an invention in order to prevent the transfer of ownership to the organization is a distinct behavior that may be influenced by completely different factors (for example, the employee’s feeling that they are poorly treated by the company regardless of the invention itself). Dr. Erez explains: “This distinction is extremely important for organizations seeking to address the problem. Actions taken by companies today, such as offering financial incentives or recognition to inventors, may encourage more disclosures to the organization. However, such measures may be less effective for employees who deliberately withhold a promising invention with the intention of using it further down the road, outside the organization”.

According to the researchers, this newly developed scale can serve as a foundation for further studies on the subject. Additionally, it can help employers build an effective innovation management strategy that minimizes the withholding of inventions within the organization.

Dr. Erez concludes: “In this study, we conducted an in-depth exploration of a widespread phenomenon that has long concerned legal professionals around the world, but so far has hardly been examined from a managerial perspective: employees in the business sector who withhold their inventions from the company that employs them. We urge researchers in academia to continue investigating this important topic, and call on employers to take notice: these behaviors exist, and it is crucial to address them. For our follow-up studies, we are developing management tools to help employers tackle the issue in all its complexity. We believe that with the right management strategies, it is possible to encourage disclosure and significantly reduce the withholding of inventions — preventing the need for legal battles down the line”.

Two complementary studies from the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences at Tel Aviv University, in collaboration with the European Institute of Oncology in Milan, have extensively examined the characteristics of cells with an abnormal number of chromosomes - known as aneuploid cells - and raised findings that may advance new cancer treatments.

Targeting Aneuploid Cancer Cells

According to the researchers: "a significant portion of cancer cells are aneuploid, and this trait distinguishes them from healthy cells. Our work focuses on the vulnerabilities of aneuploid cells, with the aim of promoting new strategies for eliminating cancerous tumors".

The researchers: "In our studies, we found that aneuploidy increases the sensitivity of cancer cells to certain types of anticancer drugs".

The studies were led by Prof. Uri Ben-David and doctoral student Johanna Zerbib from the Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry at the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences at Tel Aviv University, in collaboration with Professor Stefano Santaguida and doctoral student Marica Rosaria Ippolito from the University of Milan in Italy, along with researchers from both laboratories. Additional contributors included research teams in Israel, Italy, the USA, and Germany. Two articles based on the research were published in the prestigious journals Cancer Discovery and Nature Communications.

Prof. Ben-David explains: "In the nucleus of a healthy human cell, there are 23 pairs of chromosomes - half from the father and half from the mother, totaling 46. One of the characteristics of cancer cells, which distinguishes them from healthy cells, is an abnormal number of chromosomes, resulting from improper cell division - a phenomenon known as aneuploidy. We believe that if we can identify specific vulnerabilities of aneuploid cells, we can promote new cancer treatments that target these weaknesses and do not harm healthy cells. About three years ago, we published a comprehensive study in the journal Nature, in which we classified approximately 2,000 malignant cells from various cancer types according to their level of aneuploidy, and examined how they respond to various existing treatments. In that study, we found new vulnerabilities in aneuploid cells. However, the study had a limitation: because the cells came from different types of cancer, it was difficult to isolate the impact of aneuploidy itself from the effect of other genetic differences between the tumors".

Consequently, the researchers chose to conduct a new study using human cell cultures that are all genetically identical (i.e., derived from the same individual). The researchers added a substance to the cultures that disrupts the separation of chromosomes, causing some of them to become aneuploid. Since the cells were genetically identical, the only difference between them after the procedure was the level of aneuploidy - i.e., the number of chromosomes. To thoroughly examine the effects of aneuploidy, the cells underwent various characterization processes: DNA and RNA sequencing, measuring the levels of all the proteins in the cell, assessing the response to 6,000 different drugs, as well as a process known as CRISPR screening - systematically impairing each gene in the genome to identify genes that are essential in the cells. The researchers noted: "In this way, an extensive and unique database of the characteristics of aneuploid cells was established, which can serve as a foundation for future studies, as well as for developing biological markers that predict cancer patients' responses to specific drugs and treatments".

How to Exploit Cell Vulnerabilities for Cancer Therapy?

As part of the comprehensive survey, a mechanism called MAPK (mitogen-activated protein kinase) was observed, which is especially crucial for repairing DNA damage in aneuploid cells. The study also showed that this mechanism is relevant for various types of aneuploid cells—among them cancer cells in cultures and in human tumors. Prof. Ben-David: "We found that aneuploid cancer cells increase the activity of DNA repair mechanisms due to the large amount of DNA damage present; and we discovered a mechanism that could allow us to exploit this characteristic to target these cancer cells".

To test their hypothesis, the researchers disrupted the MAPK pathway in the cells and then examined their sensitivity to chemotherapy. The findings were promising: aneuploid cells in which this mechanism was disrupted were much more sensitive to chemotherapy (which causes DNA damage) compared to cells with a normal number of chromosomes. The researchers then sought to determine whether there is a correlation between this pathway and the clinical response of cancer patients to chemotherapy treatments. For this purpose, they relied on data from clinical treatments and experiments where human tumors were implanted in mice, and the results were clear: the higher the activity of the pathway in the aneuploid tumors, the greater their resistance to chemotherapy.

The comprehensive characterization of aneuploid cells also revealed another significant finding: these cells, which contain more chromosomes than normal cells, also necessarily include a larger amount of DNA, leading to excess production of RNA and proteins. The cell, seeking to compensate for this overproduction, attempts to silence and degrade excess RNA and proteins.

Paving the Way for Future Treatments

Johanna Zerbib noted: "Here we found another vulnerability of aneuploid cells, based on our hypothesis that these cells are more sensitive to existing drugs that inhibit protein degradation. To validate this hypothesis, we exposed cell cultures to such drugs and analyzed clinical data from patients treated with a drug that inhibits protein degradation in the cells. The findings supported the hypothesis - that aneuploidy increases the sensitivity of cancer cells to these drugs".

Prof. Ben-David concluded: "In our research, we identified two significant vulnerabilities characterizing aneuploid cells - cells with chromosomal changes, commonly found in cancer cells. The first is a mechanism essential for repairing DNA damage, where impairment significantly increases the sensitivity of aneuploid cells to chemotherapy; the second is the increased degradation of excess RNA and proteins, which can be targeted, among other things, with inhibitors that are already in clinical use. We also created an extensive database of characteristics of aneuploid cells that can serve to predict cancer patients' responses to various drugs and treatments. We believe that our research findings will benefit many researchers, oncologists, and patients in the years to come".