I worked as a digital product manager for a biotech company for a number of years before being shitcanned along with a bunch of other folks after a merger last year. I just got an email from a lawyer from the company asking me to sign and return some documents. They are relevant to a patent application that was filed probably at the beginning of 2024, on which I along with my old manager and one of the scientists on our team are listed as inventors. The gist of the document seems to be that as an inventor i would be assigning to the company global and exclusive rights in perpetuity blah blah blah.
I should talk to a lawyer about this right? And any tips on doing that (google patent lawyer in my hood?)? I'm not incredibly liquid at the moment so on the one hand I would love if this was some free money but also I'm not trying to spend a bunch in lawyers fees if this is unlikely to be worth anything. I'm not particularly mad at the company, but I'm also not trying to just give stuff away to them (and they did fucking fire me while I was on a business trip with a 6 month old at home). And while I don't want to burn bridges I also don't think I'm likely to return to their industry specifically and certainly not the niche sector of the industry where my team was most active (which is a fairly small world).
This feels like the kind of thing where they should have had me sign this before giving me severance or even as the patent was filed. But the company is run by scientists moonlighting as business folks and is particularly stupid in that area. I don't believe that the patent has been granted ("30 mo US phase filing" is part of the email). Included in the email is the previous email from December where legal had tried to contact me to sign the documents, apparently unaware that I had been fired.
Anyways, any informed perspective from some of our law homies here would be appreciated.