From: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@stout.atd.ucar.EDU>

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W.R.T. using "fake" inventors. It's illegal to file a patent application without the true original inventor's name on it. If it can be proven that a company did this, it is liable for treble damages and the lawyer who filed the application can be disbarred.

It's not the inventors who are faked, according to the article -- it's the companies for whom they work. [...] so as to make it hard for their competitors to see what they are up to.

Just a remark, that for large companies (I'd call them "groups"), the groups are formed of so many differently named entities that even insiders can't figure it out. This is because these large (usually older) groups have formed by buying and selling other companies, branches and divisions of companies. After each purchase, pride, economic interests (brand names), or traditions are such that the old names survive, or are munged into new names. I would expect it is very rare when an old name simply disappears. So, what was a company name, may become a division name in two different holdings that bought each half of the company. And if that same name was used for, say light bulbs and TVs before the split, then after the split, it is still used for the same items. Except they now come from two different companies... still following? The result is that even insiders in large groups have a hard time figuring out which part of the company is working on what, or even which brand names are produced by your company. Let alone which patent belongs to whom, or has been licensed from whom, or which non-disclosure agreements exist between which project and which project. All this simply to point out that at least some of this "hide and seek" game in patents is probably not even voluntary. From working for one of these groups (in several differently named "entities"), I think an external company could actually have an easier time piecing it all together than any insider (including at the top levels). (Thus a business idea, (although I think that is an extropians thread :-) A business that makes contacts with individual projects of a large "holding" or multinational, setting up non-disclosure agreements with each, then constantly cross references this data to put in contact groups of the holding that could benefit from knowing about each other. Individual projects (and their hierarchy) usually do not have enough short term incentive to devote much man-power to keeping in touch) Pierre. pierre@shell.portal.com