Thanks, jmw, but the letter I was forced to signed actually had IRIF in the title, so I'm afraid some other corporate wit actually deserves the credit.
<<this is the first time I've directly dealt with patents before>>
Actually, to be more accurate, I should say that this is the first time I've directly dealt with a conflict regarding ownership of IP. Thanks again for responding, everyone.
OK, OK, it looks like everyone is in agreement on this one, so I get the picture. Forgive me for my ignorance in the matter since this is the first time I've directly dealt with patents before. TheTick's post is the most convincing IMO, and is probably the one I would use to explain it to...
I was recently laid-off from a company that I spent a number of years working for. During the course of my employment I developed a product which management and I were subsequently in the process of developing a patent for. I was responsible for writing up the patent description, but never got...