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Another requirement would be that the current owner of the patent be kept on file and up-to-date otherwise the patent gets automatically invalidated. As it sta
by riskable 5y ago
Another requirement would be that the current owner of the patent be kept on file and up-to-date otherwise the patent gets automatically invalidated.
As it stands right now it can be literally impossible to find the current owner of a patent. The "inventor" is irrelevant metadata in a patent filing. What matters is who owns it and what happens a lot of the time is some business owned a patent and it folded. Or the patent was secretly sold to some other entity and that sale was never disclosed to anyone (and even if the previous owner can be found they have no obligation to tell you who they sold it to).
So even if you wanted to negotiate a license for an existing patent it's an uphill battle a lot of the time to even figure out who you need to talk to. It's an incredibly impractical system.
- beardyw 5y agoDidn't know that, sounds terrible.
- josaka 5y agoThere are gaps, but in almost all cases in the US in my experience, non-inventor owners record their interest in pubic records at the USPTO assignment database to perfect title: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html#/patent/search https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html#/patent/searc.... If they fail to do this, the previous owner could re-sell the asset to someone else who records and could have superior title. 35 USC 261, para. 4. In practice, gaps arise when patent assets are transferred between entities controlled by the same party, who doesn't need to worry about the prior owner trying to re-sell the same asset they already transferred. But event then, the public records get you pretty close to the owner.