Legal Question in Intellectual Property in New York

Re: business/ intellectual rights

There are statutes of limitation, but the question is more about what the rights your mother could claim and cause of action would be. I don't easily see either viably. By sending the idea to them without any secrecy, agreement, or protection, she was basically giving them the idea ( or at least they could have thought that and will argue that). Any Patent rights are probably dedicated. to the public.

The only hopes I see are claiming copyright in the submission and then she'd have to prove that they somehow infinged, or finding out if they got a Patent (they may have and that's fraud-to claim invention when you didn't invent) or a public shaming strategy. Good luck.

Re: business/ intellectual rights

Even if a statute of limitations had not expired, your mother would very likely have to overcome a "laches" defense by the patent's owner(s), which means that she would have to prove to the factfinder exactly why she did not pursue a patent action earlier than now, and that her reason for waiting is "reasonable" (believe it or not, lack of money is usually not well-accepted as a "reasonable" reason; things like medical reasons such as coma are).

I think your mom needs to move on. Chalk it up to another missed opportunity and don't let the missed opportunities interfere with the rest of life. It's pointless to have something like this "eat away" at one; life is just too short.

By the way, notarization does absolutely nothing to protect patent rights. Neither does mailing your invention to yourself in a sealed envelope. You can file your application as a provisional application with the US Patent & Trademark Office for $100; you then have ONE YEAR (not one year and one day; ONE YEAR) to convert that provisional application (which will not be examined and will never mature into an issued patent) into a non-provisional application (which will be examined and may mature into an issued patent).

The ONLY place where notarization or sealed envelope datestamps might even be looked at (and it might not be even here) is in what's called an "interference proceeding," in which inventors battle out who invented first. The date of the notarized document or the date stamp on the sealed envelope may or may not be accepted by the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (where interference proceedings are commenced) as evidence of date of invention.

However, at this late date, pursuing an interference in the US Patent & Trademark Office against this/these patent(s) would be prohibitively expensive; this/these patent(s) are either at the end of their lives or they have expired, and an interference proceeding can run into $many thousands, if not $millions. Also, remember that Chrysler very likely has way more money than you do and would therefore be able to wear you down until you just dropped the case; not pleasant, perhaps, but true.

For her next invention, though, have your mom keep a bound notebook with the pages therein numbered by the book's manufacturer (it's very noticeable if a page is ripped out; you can get these at technical college/university bookstores or at some stationers') and each written-on page dated (mm/dd/yyyy or dd Mmmmmmmm yyyy format), signed by her and her signature witnessed by someone OTHER than her family (a notary would do very nicely here). Such dating and signature and witnessing all need to be done contemporaneously with the finishing of the notes on that page, and this should be done on EACH page written on.

Good luck.