Posts Tagged: "patent ownership"

The basement inventor is increasingly rare, although I am old enough (and lucky enough) to know several. Invention in the “real world” is often a messy, team effort of multiple inventors, employers, contracts, research agreements, and funding agreements. As the complexity of invention multiplies, so do opportunities for unintentionally losing or jeopardizing intellectual property rights… There is often more than meets the eye when it comes to ownership of inventions. The benefits of collaboration far outweigh the disadvantages. However, you can take steps to ensure a smooth collaboration by keeping a few legal principles in mind…

It’s safe to say that most sectors will undergo significant disruption as a result of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. AI will not only disrupt our business models but it will also disrupt our legal framework for the creation and exploitation of intellectual property (IP) rights, giving rise to new IP challenges for those seeking to develop and deploy new AI systems.

At the center of the legal spat is the proper assignation of a series of patents covering DNA sequencing technologies, which UC alleges were developed while the inventor was under an agreement obliging him to assign those patents to UC… Chen’s work in the UCSC biophysics lab led to the development of a series of inventions related to individually addressable nanopores, which can be used to characterize a nucleic acid sequence in a nucleic acid molecule. These inventions were described in patent applications filed by UC with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) listing Chen as an inventor… Instead of following his contractual obligations to assign his invention to UC, Chen allegedly filed patent applications and received patent grants assigned to medical technology firm Genia Technologies, a company he founded in March 2009 after leaving UCSC.

The popular media’s reports of the demise of IP rights (especially patents) are premature and greatly exaggerated. IP remains valuable to enterprises of all sizes and types. Further, the notion of open innovation, which reflects not only the social nature of man but today’s technological reality, is here to stay. As a result, IP law practitioners will continue to be called draft, review and negotiate collaboration-type agreements where business, engineering and other legal personnel will continue to insist on the “fairness” of joint IP ownership. Such insistence should always be met with skepticism for its need. And, when such joint IP ownership is unavoidable, its consequences and mechanics must be addressed. In sum: If you must do it, don’t half-a$$ it!

As patent reform keeps chugging along in Washington, an important briefing was held on Thursday, July 23rd, between members and staff of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director Michelle Lee. The meeting focused on H.R. 9, the Innovation Act, which recently moved out of committee and is heading to the floor of the House for a vote once it’s scheduled, although a vote is not expected until September at the earliest. The briefing was closed to the press.

Who owns what and whether the rights are perfected simply cannot be a question if you want to have a market economy that recognizes patents as an asset class. For assets to be traded to the party who can best maximize value transaction costs must be kept low enough to facilitate a deal. Simply stated, if ownership information is spotty, incorrect or incomplete, there is no way to maximize the value of any single asset or patent portfolio.