Asked in Patents (Intellectual Property) for Washington

Q: Is it legal to add 2 people to my patents who now claim to be inventors when I was the listed0 on my patents for 8 yrs

2 Lawyer Answers

A: The question of inventorship is actually a legal question, so ultimately anyone who should legally be listed as an inventor *must* be listed as an inventor. If inventorship is found to be incorrect, the patent itself could be in jeopardy. There are procedures available for making these corrections. Here are some more details on this: https://mertzlufft.law/did-you-really-invent-that-who-is-the-inventor-in-patent-applications/.

Kevin E. Flynn
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A: The process wants the names of the true inventors. Inventors are not always the owners or the people that worked the hardest on making the prototypes. Inventors are the people that impacted the direction of the project so that at least one significant piece of an issued claim would not be there if that person was not involved.

There are processes to correct the names of the inventors along the way.

If these folks are actual inventors, then you should be happy to have the record corrected.

Kevin E Flynn

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