(MONEY Magazine) – STOCKS Q. I managed to get out of the market without too great a loss in the recent crash. But what happens to the stocks I own in dividend-reinvestm ent plans? NECIA H. APFEL Highland Park, Ill. A. It depends. Some companies sell your stock and send you a check when they settle their accounts -- usually monthly or quarterly. Others let you stay in their plans. Call the administrator listed in each plan's prospectus to find out the details.

PATENTS Q. I have developed and tested a product that I would like to sell to a hardware chain. How does one go about protecting an idea while trying to market it? JAMES HUMMER West Richland, Wash. A. Attorney Henry Skillman of the American Society of Inventors says that an . inventor's best protection is a utility patent -- one that recognizes your claim to what the invention does, not just how it looks. You can get all the forms and information you need by writing to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Public Service Center, Washington, D.C. 20231. Obtaining a patent takes more than a year and costs up to $5,000, including legal fees. You can get a directory of patent attorneys from the Government Printing Office (Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D.C. 20402; $17.50). To protect your idea in the meantime, you can file a disclosure document with the patent office (instructions are available from the patent office; the filing fee is $6) to establish the date that you had the idea.

LIFE INSURANCE Q. My life insurance endowment policy has been accumulating dividends and interest tax-free for 20 years. Do I have to pay taxes on the lump sum when I withdraw it? TOM HELLMANN Reno A. Yes. Actually, the dividends have been accumulating tax deferred, not tax- free. This means that you will have to pay taxes on them when you withdraw the lump sum. Moreover, some endowment policies require you to take the distribution when the policy matures. Check with your insurance company to see if this applies to you. If it does not, and if you want the use of your money without withdrawing it, you can borrow against 80% to 90% of the policy's cash value.

TAXES Q. I inherited a producing oil royalty trust in Oklahoma from my parents. Last month I received a letter from that state's tax commission asking me to file a state personal income tax return. Must I file a return and pay tax on the royalty income even if I have been living in Seattle for the past 30 years? CHARLES LAMB Seattle A. Oklahoma law requires tax be paid on any income generated by property in the state. The rate ranges from 0.5% to 6%, depending on your income. You are entitled to federal and state deductions for depletion totaling 22% of the royalty income and a further deduction based on the ratio of your deductions to your income on your federal tax return. For a single person who earns $1,000 in royalty income, has an adjusted gross income of $30,000, and takes a standard deduction, the Oklahoma tax would be $3.25.

RETIREMENT FUNDS Q. My husband and I plan to adopt a child. We have a substantial amount of money in my husband's 401(k) plan at work. Is there a way to withdraw that money to pay the adoption costs without incurring a penalty? ANN McMULLIN Fort Worth A. Probably not. The IRS does not recognize adoption as a medical expense for which you can withdraw funds from a 401(k) without penalty. If you can demonstrate that you have no other resources to meet an extreme financial hardship incurred by the adoption, you could withdraw the money, but you would have to pay a 10% penalty plus income tax on it. As an alternative, check with your husband's firm to see whether his plan allows loans to be made against the 401(k) assets. Where they are permitted, such loans must be made at market interest rates and repaid in five years.

COLLECTIBLES Q. While renovating a turn-of-the-century home he purchased three years ago, my son discovered the initials LCT etched into the brass-and-glass chandelier in his living room. A friend suggested that the chandelier and similar fixtures in the house may be Louis Comfort Tiffany originals. Will my son face any tax consequences if they are authentic and he sells them? VIRGINIA PHILLIPS Naples, Fla. A. Yes. First, you should determine whether they are authentic. Tiffany usually impressed his name on the metal rims holding a chandelier's glass in place or etched his initials into the edge of the glass shade, but there have been forgeries. To get a free estimate of what the chandelier, if by Tiffany, may fetch at auction, your son can send well-lit photographs of it with closeups of the initials to a major auction house, such as Christie's (502 Park Ave., New York, N.Y. 10022). Since a brass-and-glass Tiffany chandelier can bring anywhere from $1,000 to $200,000, according to Nancy McClelland, expert on 20th-century decorative arts at Christie's, the taxable capital gain could be substantial. Anthony Bartolini, a tax attorney at Dechert Price & Rhoads, a Philadelphia law firm, suggests that a real estate appraiser determine the proportional value of the fixtures in the overall value of your son's house to help establish their cost basis.

REAL ESTATE Q. My wife and I purchased our house before we were married. Our deed reads ''joint tenants with right of survivorship.'' If we don't have the wording changed to ''tenants by the entirety,'' will it cause a legal problem when one of us dies? RICHARD J. LEVASSEUR Tewksbury, Mass. A. No. Both phrases ensure that upon the death of one party, the survivor will automatically acquire the deceased's share of the property. The only advantage of changing the deed would be to protect the house from creditors in case one spouse gets into financial trouble. Massachusetts law discourages a bankruptcy court from selling a principal residence to settle a spouse's debts when the home is held as tenants by the entirety. The same protection is not afforded to joint tenants. For $50 to $100, any real estate lawyer can have a new deed prepared and recorded at the registry of deeds in your county.

CORRECTION: We incorrectly stated in the September issue that people over 55 could not use the $125,000 capital-gains exclusion on the sale of a house if they purchased a more expensive one. The exclusion is available provided the seller is over 55 on the date of transfer and has used the property as a principal residence for three of the past five years, and provided neither he nor his spouse has ever used the exclusion before.