Can corporations "own" their own patents?

Question

2 questions:

1: Can corporations "own" their own patents?

2: If the answer is yes, who inherits those patents when the corporation dies?

Answer 1

Yes, they can. A patent has an inventor, and an assignee. The inventor is the person who invented it. The assignee is the person/company who owns the rights to it.

There's an explanation of this at http://www.patentengineers.com

Answer 2

ofcourse

Answer 3

1. absolutely....e.g. IBM, #1 in the US

2. depends upon how the corporation is dissolved....

employees who invent things while working for the corporation do not own the patents, the corporation does...many cases where employees invented things "on their own time"....corporation "owned employee, owned patent"

Answer 4

A corporation can "own" a patent. In the US, an inventor files for patent application, and the inventor can assign his or her rights in the patent to a corporation. This is very common. If the corporation is dissolved, then the patents are distributed the same way any other property (tangible or otherwise) is distributed.

Btw, in some countries, a corporation can file for a patent on behalf of an inventor and be listed as the "applicant."