"ownership" on ancient network assignments?

Hi, we are currently noticing a dispute of two companies over a /16 address range assigned to a predecessor of both of them in 1991 (the original company was split some time ago). We're not a party in this quarrel, but I'm curious about the status of a network that was assigned such a (comparatively) long time ago. Can someone claim to be legally entitled to own this IP address range? What is likely to happen? A. Bochmann -- FreiNet Gesellschaft fuer Informationsdienste mbH Loerracher Strasse 5a D79115 Freiburg