Q: My husband, died in 2016. Can I have these patents put in my name or are they Lockheed Martin’s property?
A:
I am sorry to hear about your husband's passing.
He will continue to be the inventor on the patents. You (or anyone else) cannot put it into your name.
The ownership of the patent will undoubtedly continue to be Lockheed Martin. If your husband was employed by LM, and a part of his job was to invent stuff for LM, then the patents on his inventions are owned by LM. Unless someone at LM really screwed up (which is highly unlikely with a sophisticated company like LM) there is likely nothing you can do to get you named as the patent owner.
--Peter
A:
If you want to dig a bit deeper, you can go to the USPTO Assignment Database and confirm that your husband assigned the rights to his employer. https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html#/patent/search
While I agree that it is likely that the rights were assigned, you may want to actually see the official record of the assignment.
I hope this helps.
Kevin E Flynn
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