How does adding an inventor affect an existing power of attorney?

Adding an inventor to a patent application can affect an existing power of attorney under certain circumstances. According to MPEP 402.05(a):

If the power of attorney was granted by the originally named inventive entity and an added inventor pursuant to § 1.48 does not provide a power of attorney consistent with the power of attorney granted by the originally named inventive entity, the addition of the inventor results in the loss of that power of attorney upon grant of the § 1.48 request.

This means that if a new inventor is added to the application and does not provide a power of attorney that matches the existing one, the original power of attorney will be lost when the request to add the inventor is granted. However, this doesn’t prevent a practitioner from acting under 37 CFR 1.34 if applicable.

To learn more:

• adding inventor
• power of attorney
• patent application
• inventive entity