You have a great idea and you are ready to take the next step and have a prototype built. This may require the expertise of a draftsman, engineer, or manufacturing house, maybe even an investor. While the best way to protect any invention is often a patent, there may be considerations that prevent filing for […]
Students are increasingly running into issues where they create innovations while as a student at a University and the University has a policy in place stating that the creations belong to them, or partially belong to them. This is a serious issue that is taking away from the creations of our youth and Caleb Carr […]
Since its foundation in 2000 by Microsoft veterans Edward Jung and Nathan Myhrvold, Intellectual Ventures has managed to raise $6 billion in investments and acquire 70,000 intellectual assets. Some of their investors included technical giants Intel, Nokia, Adobe, Microsoft, Google, Sap, Sony, Apple, Yahoo, eBay American Express, NVIDIA, and investment companies Stanford, Mayo Clinic, the […]
If you have not watched the TV Show “Shark Tank”, it is a show where small business entrepreneurs and inventors go to appear on TV to “be discovered”. This led Scott Jordan, the inventor of TEC (Technology Enabled Clothing) to appear on the show. But there was a nasty little clause in the agreement to […]
First it was Angry Birds. Then it was Candy Crush. Just recently, Flappy Birds became “THE” game to download and play. Grown adults were taking to twitter to complain about how addicting the game is and how they’d rather play the game than make dinner for their children. Children were failing homework because they’d rather […]
Uncooperative Inventors
What happens when an inventor refuses to sign filing documents of a patent application? Remaining inventors may file the patent application without the uncooperative inventor.
The Effect Of Listing An Improper Inventor On A Patent Application
An inventor is someone that has had some sort of input into a claim that is listed in a patent application. If an improper inventor is listed on a patent application, then the patent that may eventually issue may be invalidated. This is also the case when not all of the inventors are listed on the patent application.
It is important for a patent application to list the proper inventors. An inventor is not just someone that you want to put on a patent application, but must be someone that contributed in some way to at least one claim in the patent application.
By: Mark R. Malek This concludes the series of articles that I have been writing on entity status in the United States Patent Office. The first article introduced the new micro-entity status. The next article gave some background information on what would happen if you claimed the wrong entity status before the USPTO, and the latest […]
