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Problems In Joint Ownership Of Patents, Harrington A. Lackey

Vanderbilt Law Review

In that area of the law where rights in the products of mental conception are created, transferred and litigated, the general practitioner is often bewildered by the challenge to identify such rights with legal principles familiar to him. Although certain of these rights have arisen and are protected under our common law, patent rights are creatures of federal statutes authorized under our Constitution. Moreover, patents are identified as property, and under the 1952 Patent Act, they have been further classified as personal property. Here the confusion begins.