Who is an inventor of a U.S. patent application?
A. An inventor is a person that takes part in the conception of the patent claims (discussed above) of a patent application. Thus, inventorship of a patent application may change as the patent claims are changed during prosecution of the application. An employer or person that furnishes money to build or practice an invention is not an inventor. Inventorship is a sometimes intricate legal determination that is made by the patent attorney prosecuting the application. See, for example, http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/faq.htm#a5.
