Do your duty (Score 1)

Chances are your employment agreement states that anything you invented while employed with your company is the sole property of your company. Employment agreements are actually pretty crappy in this regard. If you had a million dollar idea that was completely unrelated to your work/employer, and even if you develop it on your "own time", quit, go into business by yourself, etc... your (former) employer could actually sue you and win. With regard to ethics, if 100% of your project is closed source, by refusing to assist the company with a patent you're basically being insubordinate and refusing to do part of your job. A company has every right to patent and protect their IP. Patents don't have to stifle innovation. They're used to protect ideas and a company's ability to make money. Doesn't a company have that right? Also, look at the MPEG consortium. MPEG is a patented technology. If you use the technology in a commercial application, you must license the technology. But you can still write encoders and decoders and distribute the source freely for educational and personal use. Why shouldn't the members of the consortium be entitled to a piece of the pie? And we, as knowledge thirsty hackers, still get to learn all we want. On the other hand, if some piece of the project is open source, I think it is important that your employer respect all the terms of the relevant public license. In this regard you should explain the principles of the matter. If they don't abide, you could actually go to the FSF or something. In either case, either party's refusal to comply with their duties will quickly lead to your resignation.