When I worked for a previous employer, I came up with an idea that was eventually patented. My name is on the inventory, the company was assigned the rights of use.
All patents are like that. The company is never the inventor.
I watched this week as Kodak sold their patent portfolio to a known patent troll. I wondered how we could stop this. Maybe a simple change in US Law.....
Rights could still be assigned to employers, but employers would not have the right to resell those assigned rights. If the company went bankrupt, all those assigned rights would roll back to the original inventor. Anyone else who wanted those rights would have to negotiate with the original inventor. If a Company was purchased by another Company, those assigned rights wouldn't transfer, The new company would have to renegotiate with the original inventory.
This would make it much more difficult/expensive to accumulate portfolios of patents, if they were not the company employing the true inventors.