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Speech, Authorship, And Inventorship: A New Approach To Corporate Personhood, Sean M. O'Connor

Sean M. O'Connor

Recent developments relating to corporate speech, authorship, and inventorship suggest a collision of three policy principles: the right of associations to speak with a collective voice; the right of individuals to own or receive credit for the products of their intellect; and the need of innovation firms to control the intellectual output of individuals hired to create. In Citizens United, the Supreme Court upheld a right to corporate political speech as a form of collective voice. But in Stanford v. Roche, the Court affirmed the rule that patentable inventions vest ab initio with their natural person inventors. Meanwhile, in copyright …