amounted to an implied transfer.
Sarah asked him to identify a signed assignment.
He said every founder understood that intellectual property belonged to the business.
Marcus corrected him again: Corivia’s formation documents specifically listed my patent as founder-owned technology made available through a separate license.
Each denial tightened the trap.
Then Alex made his third mistake.
“Fine,” he said.
“Produce the assignment agreement.”
Marcus stared at him.
“There isn’t one.”
“There has to be.”
“I reviewed every executed intellectual-property document during diligence.
Brittany never assigned the patent.”
Alex struck the table with his palm.
“Then someone failed to obtain it.”
One of the directors, a retired judge named Evelyn Shaw, leaned forward.
“Did you tell Intercolix that Corivia owned the patent?”
“I relied on management’s understanding.”
“You are management.”
He looked at her but offered no answer.
Sarah then asked Marcus whether the previous day’s board meeting had been recorded.
Alex objected immediately.
“Internal deliberations are privileged.”
“That was not my question,” Sarah said.
Marcus nodded.
Corivia’s conference system automatically recorded meetings involving transaction approvals and executive terminations.
The files were preserved for regulatory compliance.
Sarah asked him to play the relevant section.
My voice came first, low and controlled: “You’re making a mistake.”
Then Alex’s voice filled the room.
“Corivia owns the platform now.”
A few seconds later came the second statement.
“Effective immediately, your employment is terminated for cause.”
No one moved while the recording continued.
They heard Alex call the license terms technicalities.
They heard him tell me to read my contract.
They heard the scrape of my chair and the security guard stepping toward me.
Sarah stopped the playback.
“The false ownership claim triggered subsection one,” she said.
“The unsupported termination triggered subsection two.
Formal notice was served at 9:42 yesterday morning.
Corivia had twenty-four hours to cure both breaches.
Instead, Mr.
Carrington reaffirmed the ownership claim in writing and accused the licensor of sabotage.
Revocation became effective at 9:42 this morning.”
Intercolix’s counsel confirmed that her team had received the notice and verified the patent record independently.
“Without a valid license,” she said, “Corivia cannot lawfully operate, sell, or transfer the diagnostic engine.
The engine represents approximately eighty-one percent of the value identified in our investment committee materials.
We have no basis to proceed.”
Alex pulled out his phone.
“Give me an hour.”
“To do what?”
“Correct the paperwork.”
Sarah’s expression changed slightly.
“What paperwork?”
Before he could answer, a second call appeared on the conference screen.
The name displayed was Tyler Nguyen, Corivia’s systems administrator.
Marcus accepted it.
Tyler appeared from the server room, his face lit by rows of equipment.
He looked exhausted.
“I was asked to preserve all transaction-related files,” he said.
“During the preservation sweep, the audit system flagged a document uploaded at 2:14 this morning.”
Alex became completely still.
Tyler shared his screen.
A file titled Founder_IP_Assignment_Final appeared beside a timestamp and a chain of audit data.
“The document is dated four years ago,” Tyler said, “but it was created last night.
It contains a scanned version of Brittany’s signature copied from an employment form.”
A director whispered, “My God.”
Alex pointed at the screen.
“Who uploaded it?”
Tyler enlarged the account information.
The file had been created through the executive administrator profile assigned to Alex’s office.
Alex looked at
