Who Should Be Listed As Inventors In A Patent Application?

This is a question that all patent applicants must answer before filing a patent application. However, applicants often answer the question without fully understanding the criteria for "inventorship." Applicants often simply presume that the inventors listed on an invention disclosure, or the authors of a publication, will be the inventors. This is not necessarily the case, since inventors of an invention and the authors of a document can be (and often are) different.

The consequences of failing to correctly identify the inventors in a patent application can be severe. If an inventor was omitted, the assignee of record may not be the sole owner of the patent rights.  In addition, an incorrect inventor list also may result in an invalid patent. Although inventorship can be corrected after a patent application is filed, and even after the patent grants, it's much easier to get it right in the first place by answering a few key questions before filing the patent