Does your company have a patent incentive program? Generally, what are the terms? What size is your company? How much effort does the inventor spend in crafting the application?
We don't have one, but in previous companies (2, to be exact) the terms have effectively been: a pittance reward ($1000-$5000) plus an unlimited obligation to defend the patent in the future, long after one has left the company.<p>That latter part actually came up for me once; I was offered compensation for significant time spent providing expert support for a patent cross-licensing dispute, long after I'd left the company, but it was at a fiat rate far below my actual market value at the time.