The core patent — the actual engine that Meridian Systems still runs on, the thing every one of Gerald’s clients pays for — traces back to the provisional filing I made in my name, twenty-three years ago.
And in his rush to marry me, build the company, and eventually leave me, Gerald had never once properly assigned that intellectual property to the corporation.
He couldn’t have.
The assignment required the original filer’s signature.
Mine.
And I had never signed it.
“Let me make sure I understand,” Ruth said, spreading the documents across her desk.
“For twenty-three years, this man has run a company — now valued, per this filing, at around forty million dollars — built on a patented core that legally still belongs to you.
And he never got your signature to transfer it.”
“He got a lot of my signatures,” I said. “Just never that one. It was never in the stack.”
