The issue of employee inventions and the extent to which employee inventors should be compensated has in recent times become a hot topic in the UK. Since the Patents Act 1977 there has been a statutory right for employees to be awarded additional compensation over and above their salary for patented inventions made by them during the course of their employment where "having regard among other things to the size and nature of the employers undertaking, the invention or the patent for it (or the combination of both) is of outstanding benefit to the employer; and, by reason of those facts it is just …" for an award to be made.