[FRIAM] Ownership of expired patent

[Stephen Guerin]

Not a lawyer /  this is my understanding.

Yes, the firm owns the copyright to the code and is a form of intellectual
property independent of patent.

Copyright is owned by the author (or entity that had work-for-hire
agreements) at the moment of creation.

As an author or someone that had access to proprietary information during
it's creation, you can not rewrite it in a different language or transfer
any knowledge to someone who is. it would violate the copyright. If an
independent person saw the product and wanted to re-implement the
functionality without access to the code or other proprietary information
they could do so in a "clean room design" process:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design

-Stephen
_______________________________________________________________________
CEO, Simtable  http://www.simtable.com
1600 Lena St #D1, Santa Fe, NM 87505
office: (505)995-0206 mobile: (505)577-5828
twitter: @simtable


On Tue, Jul 2, 2019 at 4:13 PM Ron Newman <ron.newman at gmail.com> wrote:

> P.S.  A more subtle question is what if I rewrote the formerly-patented
> application in a different language.  Does a work-for-hire cover ideas?  I
> think it does.
>
> Ron Newman, M.S., M.M.E.
> Founder, IdeaTreeLive.com <http://www.Ideatreelive.com> Knowledge Modeling
> www.RonPiano.com
> Blog <https://blog.ideatreelive.com>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 2, 2019 at 4:11 PM Ron Newman <ron.newman at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I think the patent, which is non-renewable, and the code implementing the
>> patent are two separate things.  The first they lose rights over, but the
>> second is covered by a work-for-hire agreement since it could be used
>> internally, or even sold as a product by the corporation without patent.
>> But I could be wrong.
>>
>> Ron Newman, M.S., M.M.E.
>> Founder, IdeaTreeLive.com <http://www.Ideatreelive.com> Knowledge
>> Modeling
>> www.RonPiano.com
>> Blog <https://blog.ideatreelive.com>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 2, 2019 at 4:06 PM Tom Johnson <tom at jtjohnson.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Would not the corporation have to renew the patent at some point?
>>> Tom
>>>
>>> ============================================
>>> Tom Johnson - tom at jtjohnson.com
>>> Institute for Analytic Journalism   --     Santa Fe, NM USA
>>> 505.577.6482(c)                                    505.473.9646(h)
>>> *NM Foundation for Open Government* <http://nmfog.org>
>>> *Check out It's The People's Data
>>> <https://www.facebook.com/pages/Its-The-Peoples-Data/1599854626919671>*
>>>
>>> ============================================
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Jul 2, 2019 at 3:55 PM Ron Newman <ron.newman at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I was awarded a software patent 30 years ago while at a corporate job.
>>>> That patent has since expired, of course.  I assume I signed a
>>>> work-for-hire agreement the first day on that job.
>>>>
>>>> Now that it's expired, I also assume the corporation still owns the
>>>> code, and so I'm not free to open source it.  Correct?
>>>>
>>>> Any IP attorneys here?
>>>>
>>>> Ron Newman, M.S., M.M.E.
>>>> Founder, IdeaTreeLive.com <http://www.Ideatreelive.com> Knowledge
>>>> Modeling
>>>> www.RonPiano.com
>>>> Blog <https://blog.ideatreelive.com>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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