Patent Assignment is Time-barred

A patent license contract is valid only during the existence of the patent right. According to the Patent Law, the term of invention patent is 20 years, and the term of utility model patent and design patent is 10 years, counting from the date of application. After the expiry of the validity period of the patent right or the declaration of invalidity of the patent right, the patentee shall not enter into a patent implementation license contract with another person in respect of the patent. The assignor of a patent license contract shall maintain the validity of the patent within the validity period of the contract. If the patent right is terminated within the validity period of the contract, the contract shall be terminated at the same time, and the assignor shall pay liquidated damages or compensation for losses. If the patent right is declared invalid, the assignor shall compensate for the loss caused to the assignee, but the royalties already paid shall not be returned. Second, which situation patent may be invalid 1, utility model patents and appearance patents are not to do substantive review, that is, whether the utility model and appearance patents have novelty is not examined, which results in a lot of utility model and appearance patents are not patentable, that is to say, they could not have been granted a patent. Therefore, the law requires that before filing a utility model patent infringement lawsuit, the first step is to go to the Patent Office to check whether the utility model patent has novelty and inventiveness, and if the patent does not have novelty after searching, it means that the patent is invalid. In addition, the rights of the appearance patent are also very unstable like the utility model patent, and it is easier to be recognized as invalid. The invention patent is subject to substantive examination, and the substantive examination is to conduct a worldwide search in the vast patent literature to find out whether the patent has novelty and inventiveness, but the examiner will inevitably have omissions, and it is not uncommon that invention patents are found to be invalid in the patent litigation. 2. Even if the patent is valid, it may be invalid for other reasons, for example, the patentee did not pay the annual patent fee according to the regulations, which is intended to prompt the patentee to produce social benefits from the patent as soon as possible. But the actual utilization rate of patents in our country is less than 10%, the patentee can not see the economic benefits of patents, but to pay the annual patent fee, then the patentee will not pay the annual patent fee, in practice, there are a lot of units and individuals forget to pay the annual patent fee, so that the patent is in an invalid state. 3, the patentee's own statement to give up the patent, the patent will also be in the invalid state, now have not seen someone take the initiative to give up their patent rights, the statement to give up but also to fulfill certain procedures, so if you really want to give up, more people will choose not to pay the annual fee to give up the patent, but the patentee in the patent transfer or licensing, there may be for some reason to give up the patent. 4, in practice, we have seen such a case, the patent itself is valid, but due to the writing of the claim has a major flaw, resulting in the patent actually become meaningless, that is, the patent and invalid patent and no difference. 5, there is a relatively rare situation, that is, the patent has passed the protection period. After the patent protection period, the technology has entered the field of ****, any can not through the patentee's consent to use the patent, and do not have to pay any fees. In a technology license, which usually includes a series of patents, some of which may be out of date, then the patent is not subject to payment.