Q: I invested in a company many years ago and was one of 5 original investors how can I check to see if a patent has been
profitable ,used by any company ?I do know there's no statue of limitations on fraud in Texas.
A:
This tool might be helpful. Just as you record your ownership of a house with the local county records department, you record the movement of patent rights from an inventor into a company. If you know the name of the company you invested in, you can look for that company name as the assignee in the United States Patent and Trademark Database. https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html#/patent/search
This is not foolproof as they might not have followed the rules and recorded the patent. In case they put the patent into a separate holding company and not the main company, you can search for patents associated with the key technical people in the company you invested in.
I hope that this helps.
Kevin E Flynn
A:
Well, you can check if a patent has been issued, by taking a look at the US Patent Office website.
But how profitable an issued patent is? That is a matter of speculation. Some courts have to do that occasionally (the Delaware Court seems to be particularly well informed on how to do this). Essentially, you would have to calculate how my your company is making now, and how much it would make if there was free competition; the difference is the gross value of the patent.
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