I used to work for company A, and during my employment, company A filed a patent application (to my knowledge, no patent has been issued yet) and I was listed as an inventor. While employed by company A, I signed various documents assigning the patent to company A.
Company A was acquired by company B, and company B are, to put it mildly, d-bags. I resigned from company B a few months after the acquisition.
Company B recently sent me some papers they want me to sign, one of which looks like the original assignment papers, but assign the patent to company B; the other looks like a boilerplate declaration for the USPTO (I am the named inventor, patent apps can lead to identity theft, stuff like that). The assignment form has a filing date in mid September, long after I had left the company. Someone from company B called me today, and asked when I would get this signed and back to them.
Do I need to sign this? What happens if I don't? Could I open myself up to legal action by not signing this?
I'm not interested in any kind of compensation, though I think it's a bad patent (it's for a software system), and I don't feel like I owe company B anything more.