Intellectual Property (IP) rights for both inventors and employers can be a confusing quagmire for all involved. The traditional aspects of inventor IP rights, viz., patents, copyrights and trade secrets as well as related to employer and employee rights will be compared in this paper. Issues discussed include ownership rights of IP from the perspective of both the employer and the employee. From the perspective the employer, issues include the importance and content of employment agreements, timing of the agreement (i.e., issues related to an agreement execution before and after commencement of employment), identification of what is and what isn't considered to be an invention owned by the company (e.g. , inventions made prior to employment and inventions made outside the scope of employment may not be owned by the company), and agreements with respect to employees vs. agreements with respect to independent contractors. From the perspective of the employee, issues include inventions made outside of course of employment, the importance of carefully reading and understanding the employment agreement, both the inventor's rights and obligations and the employer's rights and obligations under the agreement (and complying with those terms), whether or not there is even an employer/employee relationship (e.g. , are you an independent contractor or employee), and the importance of proper record keeping, particularly for inventions made that are outside the scope of employment. The terms of employment agreements with regard to IP can be stringent in some cases and inventors especially need to be aware, from the start, of these obligations such as identifying the existence of their inventions to the employer prior to beginning employment.