There’s often anyone who owns that IP. When an organization goes bankrupt and shuts down, the corporate goes into the chapter liquidation. The court docket appoints a trustee that is put in control of promoting off the entire firm’s property to repay as a lot of the corporate’s money owed as doable. This implies bodily issues like workplace furnishings, computer systems, kitchen gear, unsold stock, and many others. and it additionally means digital issues like mental property and expertise rights. At a chapter liquidation public sale, different events typically can (and do) purchase up these IP rights as a result of they’ll typically be had for a reasonably low worth.
You’ll be able to really search for who owns a copyright in actual time on the (US Copyright Workplace Public Data Search web page) and discovering the Claimant (present proprietor).
I also needs to word that abandonware (i.e. software program that publishers have stopped promoting and supporting) lives in a authorized gray space that’s nonetheless actionable. Participating with it for private use in all probability will not put you in authorized scorching water, however attempting to construct and promote it commercially probably will. IP legislation nonetheless applies, even when the IP is at the moment fallow.
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