I have wondered about factory design changes on various models. Who typically holds the patents or rather the right to mfg. or implement. As an example I have a friend who was an employee of IH tractor who holds the patents on a number of designs that IH used. Did S&W allow their internal designs to be held by employees or did the designs become property of the company? As an example, the change from pre-war long action to post-war short action. Was it developed "in house" or did it come from someone with close association to the factory such as King or Roper or someone similar. I am sure that today it would be entirely different but in the past,was it relaxed and informal, or was it as strict as I think it is today? I am probably in over my head but this discussion came up the other day among several of our local group and while we all have thoughts, no one knows for sure. Any thoughts from the Forum?

This is just conjecture, but S&W always had an adversion to paying royalties to anone to use their patents, after their experiences with Rollin White. They stopped using Parkerizing on Victory Models in WW2 when they found it it was a patented process and they had to pay to use it. If an invention patented by others was needed by S&W, they bought the rights, as they did with Clement for for their .35 and .32 auto pistols. I think it's safe to assume that something new, invented or discovered in house by employees, would be patented by S&W, and not any individual worker or employee. Ed.

I believe that any patent developed by the employee of a company would belong to that company. In most instances the employee's name would be on the patent document but the actual patented process would be the company's property.