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Abstract

Digitization and online public databases have made patent searches a much simpler pursuit in recent years. However, uncovering a pre-digital era patent’s history and context remains challenging. A search for the first patents assigned to Rice University highlighted associated issues. Older patent formats often do not clearly indicate inventor-assignee relationships, and applications and official communications are not available online. To determine how Rice came to own three 1948 patents, extensive archival research was required. Were these patents assigned to the University by inventors, independent of its support or funding, or was their work performed at and for Rice, thus obliging the inventors to cede ownership? The lack of precedence or an extant intellectual property policy made for a complicated answer, the analysis of which forms the bulk of this case study. Other historical patent researchers may find similarly complex histories lie behind patents granted before widespread adoption of intellectual property policies at institutes of higher learning.

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