What Happens to the Rights When Someone Dies: Intellectual Property in Estates, Divorce, and Personal Succession
By Casey Scott McKay ·
Intellectual property passes on death like other property in most respects and unlike it in several that matter enormously. Copyright carries a statutory termination right that vests in a defined class of heirs and cannot be given away by will. Publicity rights survive death in some states and not others, with terms ranging from a decade to a century. Patents belong to whoever holds title regardless of who invented them, while inventorship itself does not pass. Trademarks cannot be separated from the goodwill they represent, which makes a bequest of a personal brand harder than it looks. This article works through each of these, then through divorce, valuation, and the administration problems an estate holding royalty streams actually faces.
IP and Technology > IP and IT in Corporate Transactions | Article | Published 22 December 2024 - Updated 26 November 2025 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us
Summary. Intellectual property passes on death like other property in most respects and unlike it in several that matter enormously. Copyright carries a statutory termination right vesting in a defined class of heirs that cannot be given away by will. Publicity rights survive death in some states and not others. Patents belong to whoever holds title regardless of who invented them. Trademarks cannot be separated from the goodwill they represent, which makes a bequest of a personal brand harder than it looks. This article works through each, then through divorce, valuation, and the administration problems an estate holding royalty streams actually faces.
Keywords: intellectual property in estates · copyright termination rights · statutory heirs · renewal interest · post-mortem publicity rights · community property and IP · divorce division of royalties · trademark assignment with goodwill · patent inventorship after death · literary executor · digital assets · valuation of royalty streams · licensing after death · moral rights · probate administration
This is premium Marksy content — the full document is available to subscribers.