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Properly Name Inventors on Patents

By Paul A. Ragusa and Jason Chumney
June 29, 2009

The question of inventorship, which is sometimes not thoroughly vetted during patent prosecution, can be of paramount importance in patent litigation. A patent can be held invalid for incorrect inventorship, and co-inventorship of one, even relatively insignificant, claim can entitle a co-inventor to an ownership stake in every claim of the patent. Moreover, failure to join all co-inventors/owners as plaintiffs can prevent the real party in interest from enforcing a patent. A recent decision by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“Federal Circuit”), Nartron Corp. v. Schukra U.S.A., Inc., 558 F.3d 1352 (Fed. Cir. 2009), is illustrative of such risks and is analyzed below.

Background

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