Question
Company S used to have a wholly owned subsidiary in the UK (“S-UK.”) S eventually shut down S-UK. S-UK held a number of patent assets.
S dissolved the S-UK legal entity circa 2010. The liquidator hired for this process did not have S-UK sign any forms expressly assigning the S-UK held patent assets to S. The liquidator claims that they were not aware of any S-UK intangible assets, including any patents. We have not found any “catch-all” assignments where S-UK assigned all of its assets, or all remaining assets, to S. We did find a board resolution authorizing the liquidator to distribute all of the assets of S-UK to its owners (of which there was just S at that time.)
We would like to register S as the owner of these patent assets. They are mostly in the U.S., EP (France, Germany, UK, mostly via the EPC). There are also some in JP, AU, CA, MX, TW.
Is there an easy way to do so under this scenario?
Answers: 3 public & 1 private
For safety and clarity, it is probably best to have assignments registered within each country that patents exist. Sometimes, when an assignment is first executed by the inventors to a company, the assignment usually covers the fact that all rights to the invention in question covers all patents, in all countries, whatever, but it is probably better to implement assignments for each one or all of the patents in each country. The most important thing in connection with assignments is to establish a clear chain of title, so you will probably need documents evidencing the creation of S-UK by S, the assignment of the patents to S-UK, and a copy of the board resolution authorizing the liquidator to distribute all of the assets of S-UK to S. This will then effectively establish a clear chain of title from S to S-UK, and back to S.
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