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[jbgolf]

Does anyone know what happens to existing US patents if the company that owns them goes bankrupt and does not sell or assign them?

We are trying to purchase them from a company that is in bankruptcy.  They are looking for a larger buyer to take all their ip assets, but do not have any such buyer.  What happens to those paptents if the company does not sell anything to anyone and goes out of business?

Any help would be greatly appreciated...Thanks.

[JimIvey]

In terms of ownership, patents are pretty much like any type of property.  I guess one major difference though is that, if a plot of land is unowned, it's still there and eventually gets absorbed somehow -- like sold at a tax sale auction.  Patents, on the other hand, can simply languish without an owner until expiration.

Unowned patents expire the same as any other -- at their expect time or earlier if a maintenance fee isn't paid.

I would expect that, in bankruptcy, patents would sold off like any other property.  However, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that people managing bankruptcies don't know how to sell patents -- patent auctions are a relatively new phenomenon.  You could find such a person (a receiver? conservator?  Sorry, don't know the proper term) and make an offer if the patents haven't been sold already.  The answer lies more in bankruptcy law than in patent law.

Regards.

[patent_map]

Patents aren't abandoned, they expire. A patent owned by a bankrupt entity is valid until a maintenance fee is unpaid and then it enters the public domain. (The actual date of expiration may be tricky; use care if important.) If you want a patent owned by a bankrupt company, contact the receivor and ask to buy it.