Assignment and Recording of Patents

Subject to the provisions of this title, patents shall have the attributes of personal property. 

Applications for patent, patents, or any interest therein, shall be assignable in law by an instrument in writing. The applicant, patentee, or his assigns or legal representatives may in like manner grant and convey an exclusive right under his application for patent, or patents, to the whole or any specified part of the United States. 

An assignment, grant, or conveyance shall be void as against any subsequent purchaser or mortgagee for a valuable consideration, without notice, unless it is recorded in the Patent and Trademark Office within three months from its date or prior to the date of such subsequent purchase or mortgage. 

14 A patent is initially assigned to the inventor. If the invention lists more than one inventor, then each inventor is assigned an equal share in the entire invention. More will be said about this in Chapter 4, which deals with inventorship and inventorship issues. 

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