Question about rights to ownership of patent documents

[jankoenig]

What is the name of your state? Texas

I recently purchased an item that is related to a collecting hobby of mine. It is an original set of pre-1900 patent documents for a fairly important patent. These are the documents issued to the owner of the patent by the patent office. The documents have the appropriate seals, ribbons, and signatures along with the original drawings and description. This particular patent was the basis for the explosive growth of a very prominent Connecticut-based company and established the basis for a major industry. As such, it has significant monetary value.

According to what I've been able to document so far, this, and other patent documents from the same company were rescued from a flood more than 50 years ago and have been is storage in private hands ever since. The documents have not been in the company's possession for over 50 years. In that time the company has gone through three changes of corporate ownership.

As far as I know, the company has no idea that these original documents still exist.

The company is still in business producing the same type of products, although today it is a subsidiary of a division of a major consumer products firm. The company's products are still well known, highly regarded and are available throughout the world.

Here's my question - what claim does the surviving corporate entity have on the documents?

Note: This question really doesn't fit any of the main categories on this forum, so I'm going to cross post it as a thread in the the corporate law area.

I would appreciate any guidance you can offer regarding this question.

 

[divgradcurl]

What is the name of your state? Texas

I recently purchased an item that is related to a collecting hobby of mine. It is an original set of pre-1900 patent documents for a fairly important patent. These are the documents issued to the owner of the patent by the patent office. The documents have the appropriate seals, ribbons, and signatures along with the original drawings and description. This particular patent was the basis for the explosive growth of a very prominent Connecticut-based company and established the basis for a major industry. As such, it has significant monetary value.

According to what I've been able to document so far, this, and other patent documents from the same company were rescued from a flood more than 50 years ago and have been is storage in private hands ever since. The documents have not been in the company's possession for over 50 years. In that time the company has gone through three changes of corporate ownership.

As far as I know, the company has no idea that these original documents still exist.

The company is still in business producing the same type of products, although today it is a subsidiary of a division of a major consumer products firm. The company's products are still well known, highly regarded and are available throughout the world.

Here's my question - what claim does the surviving corporate entity have on the documents?

Note: This question really doesn't fit any of the main categories on this forum, so I'm going to cross post it as a thread in the the corporate law area.

I would appreciate any guidance you can offer regarding this question.

It's like any other item or object once owned by someone else -- if they can establish a chain-of-title than proves that they still own it, then it probably still belongs to them. If not, then it probably belongs to you. This document has no intrinsic value, just historical value, so it is really no different than any other item a company might have once owned.