Your situation is serious and not one for freebie answers on a service like Justia. My only advice is that you need to consult with an attorney with relevant skills ASAP. As food for thought to help you get ready for that meeting, here are some things to think about. My suggestions are not... View More

That patent, like all other patents issued in 1981, has expired a long time ago.

No, it cannot be renewed. Once it is expired, anyone to use anything claimed or disclosed in the patent.

However, there are other patents that build on the technology disclosed in that patent.

The assignment database lists an assignment from you to TI. https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html#/patent/search/resultAbstract?id=20180348152&type=publNum

You should consult with a local patent attorney to sort out the nuances of what you assigned versus what is in this... View More

That is not how patents work. They do not have a patent on "the Iphone" . They have patents on very specific features that can be used on a mobile phone. They likely have lots of other patents. Unless you have all the required nouns and verbs in an independent claim of a patent that... View More

I am going to assume that your fact pattern is that you invented a new nanomaterial and communicated details about this new material to a person in the US. That person has subsequently filed a patent application which you have seen as it has published.

Step 1 -- take care to preserve all... View More

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... View More

Step 1 -- you can pull up issued patents with class 706/12 using the USPTO search tools. http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=0&p=1&f=S&l=50&Query=ccl%2F706%2F12%0D%0A&d=PTXT (Long URL as I... View More

First, the concept of being an inventor is not directly related to the percentage of work by the various members on the team. I have filed patents where team members that did much of the modeling, documentation, testing, and even optimizing of a design did not get named as a co-inventor as they... View More

I am not sure that I have your precise question but let me take a guess.

FACT Pattern

I am guessing that you invented something and had some level of documentation of your development and proof of date of conception of that invention. That material is now largely gone.... View More

The COST of getting a single US patent is several tens of thousands of US dollars. It could be as little as $10K, or as much as $50K+. It depends on many factors.

Now, the VALUE of a patent, once the US Patent Office grants it, is determined the same as the value of anything else. The... View More

Typically, it is the other way around. It appears to take several months for US patents to show up on Google, whereas patents show up on UPSTO the day that they are issued.

But some foreign patents do not show up on USPTO's site, but Google may have them on their site.... View More

To check if all the fees have been paid, go to https://fees.uspto.gov/MaintenanceFees .

Under certain circumstances you can pay maintenance fees in expired patents to reinstate the patents. See, https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2590.html

Wow -- there are a hundred things and you need not wait until you have your patent issued to start on them. You can start on some activities by reaching out to vendors using a Non-Disclosure Agreement before filing the patent application. The toughest issue for many entrepreneurs is working out a... View More

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... View More

The 280Z was released in 1975. Anything released in 1975 is long off of patent protection.

If you are working with something within the last 21 years, then you may need to do some searching. You might want to start with my tips on patent searching. http://bit.ly/Patent_Searching... View More

The 17-18 year old could be facing up to 20 years in the state penitentiary, a $10,000 fine, and a lifetime of registering as a Sex Offender. Age 16 is the oldest in the juvenile justice system so he would be prosecuted as an adult. If that doesn't scare him away then he is not a person that... View More

You are correct that this is a legitimate worry. Patent liability attaches to those who make, use, sell, offer to sell, or possess an item that infringes an unexpired US patent.

If your supplier is located outside of the US, the patent owner may sue you and leave it to you to collect from... View More

It looks like you don't have to worry about that patent. According to https://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair, Patent US 6,621,502 expired due to nonpayment of maintenance fees under 37 CFR 1.362

I'm terribly sorry to hear about your mother's loss and how complicated this is for your family. Without a bit more information it's difficult to determine what the proper outcome should be as it depends on many factors. One thing I know for sure is that you need to hire a probate... View More

The patent number should be written on the tool. If for whatever reason it is not, then it should be on packaging.

If the patent information is not on either, then according to the law someone making copies of the tool won’t be liable for patent infringement until the patent owner... View More