Q: If a patent assignee is the company what rights do the inventors have?
If one of the inventors passed away before the patent was complete would his/her spouse get the benifits for the patent. Also how could I find out if an agreement was signed between the inventors and the company?
A:
If the inventor/employee assigned rights (or was under an obligation to do so), then the rights will be in the employer/company. This is the normal way of the world. I paid a builder to build my house. The builder built the house but as I paid him to do so, I own the house even though I did not build it.
You may be able to find a copy of the assignment in this data base. You would choose "assignor" and the name of the inventor or you can pick patent number, application number etc.
https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html#/patent/search
Good luck.
Kevin E Flynn
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