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50 Seton Hall L. Rev. 1 (2019-2020)

handle is hein.journals/shlr50 and id is 1 raw text is: Spousal Rights to Inventions: A Latent Threat to Corporate Patent Portfolios Daniel H. Shulman and Angela Upchurch* I.INTRODUCTION ............................................. 2 II.PATENT OWNERSHIP AND ITS CONSEQUENCES ..................3 III.FAMILY LAW AND OWNERSHIP OF PERSONAL PROPERTY: THE COMMUNITY PROPERTY AND EQUITABLE PROPERTY APPROACHES TO MARITAL PROPERTY .....................4 A. Treatment of Marital Property During Marriage and at Dissolution...................5........... 5 B. Challenges to Treating Patents as Property Under Family Law.........................................7 C. Management of Marital Property During the Marriage......9 IV.EXAMINATION OF PATENT OWNERSHIP DISPUTES AMONG EMPLOYEE, SPOUSE AND EMPLOYER IN THE FEDERAL COURTS ......................................... 10 V.ANALYSIS AND PROPOSAL ................................. 18 A. Federal Courts Cannot Use Preemption to Resolve This Dilemma ............................... 18 B. Proposed Modifications to the Patent Statutes.............20 C. Alternative Practical Proposal for Employers ..............23 VI.CONCLUSION ........................................26 1 Daniel H. Shulman, Shareholder, Vedder Price P.C., Adjunct Professor of Law, Loyola University Chicago School of Law, and Angela Upchurch, Professor of Law, Southern Illinois School of Law. The authors would like to thank Alyssa Alexander, Karl Borgsmiller, Lacey Boulware, Keegan Nowlin, and Angela Williams-Cox for their research assistance.