Patent: Can a patent be filed in the name of a person who is not the inventor? If yes, are there any particular conditions?

Can a patent be filed in the name of a person who is not the inventor? If yes, are there any particular conditions?

The patent can be registered in the name of a person different from the inventor, on the condition that there are certain assumptions. A classic case of registration to a different person is where a person has been employed to create new technical solutions.

In this instance everything invented during the employment is registered in the name of the company. However there can be other cases, for example, particular agreements of transferral of the rights on the invention between the parties. Even when it is agreed the patent to be registered in someone else’s name, this obviously upon compensation, it is proper that in the application the real creator of the technical solution and not the registered owner, as often done, is indicated as the “inventor”. Nothing changes from the point of view of “ownership” of the patent, but the moral right of the inventor is respected and recognised.

On the other hand, if the registration to a different person is done in bad faith and at random, then the inventor can act in a juridical way and ask to have his rights recognised and transferred to himself, as this kind of behaviour is illicit and gets penalized.