How does U.S. patent law differ from other countries regarding inventorship?
The MPEP highlights a key difference between U.S. patent law and that of other countries regarding inventorship:
“The requirement that the applicant for a patent in an application filed before September 16, 2012 be the inventor(s) (except as otherwise provided in pre-AIA 37 CFR 1.41), and that the inventor or each joint inventor be identified in applications filed on or after September 16, 2012, are characteristics of U.S. patent law not generally shared by other countries.” MPEP 2109
This means that in the U.S., the actual inventors must be named on the patent application, whereas in some other countries, the applicant (who may be a company or assignee) can be named instead of or in addition to the inventors. This difference can lead to confusion for foreign applicants filing in the U.S.
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