Determining and Correcting Inventorship: A Practitioner's Guide to Conception Evidence, Section 256 Correction, and Ownership Consequences
By Casey Scott McKay ·
This guide takes inventorship from the invention disclosure form to the correction petition, and it is written for the practitioner who has to run the analysis and then have the conversation. It starts with a disclosure process that captures conception evidence while people still remember, then specifies the claim-by-claim grid that determines the inventive entity and the re-check at allowance that almost nobody performs. It covers the corroboration problem and the record retention that decides it years later. It works both correction routes - the administrative fix during prosecution and the Section 256 petition or court order after issuance - and treats the assignment audit as the control that determines whether an inventorship error is paperwork or a co-ownership emergency. It closes with joint ownership agreements, buyouts, diligence, and the two conversations worth rehearsing.
IP and Technology > Patent Counseling Transactions | Guide | Published 2 April 2026 - Updated 7 August 2026 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us
Summary. This guide takes inventorship from the invention disclosure form to the correction petition, and it is written for the practitioner who has to run the analysis and then have the conversation. It starts with a disclosure process that captures conception evidence while people still remember, then specifies the claim-by-claim grid that determines the inventive entity and the re-check at allowance that almost nobody performs. It covers the corroboration problem and the record retention that decides it years later. It works both correction routes — the administrative fix during prosecution and the Section 256 petition or court order after issuance — and treats the assignment audit as the control that determines whether an inventorship error is paperwork or a co-ownership emergency. It closes with joint ownership agreements, buyouts, diligence, and the two conversations worth rehearsing.
Keywords: invention disclosure process · claim by claim grid · conception interviews · corroboration records · retention of engineering records · inventorship at allowance · Rule 48 correction · Section 256 petition · court ordered correction · assignment audit · present assignment language · confirmatory assignments · recordation · joint ownership agreement · buyout valuation · derivation alternatives · trade secret theory · diligence findings · difficult conversations · annual review
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