Public disclosure

Public disclosure of an innovation is any public written or oral communication that describes the innovation in detail. Publications that are “enabling” (i.e., would allow one of ordinary skill in the art to arrive at the same invention without excessive experimentation) can disqualify one from receiving a patent. The term “publication” is broadly interpreted to include journal articles, posters, slides, talks, conference proceedings, abstracts on the Web, theses and dissertations that are available to the public, and discussions with corporate researchers and company personnel. Research group meetings that are not open to the public, non-public communications with a grant agency, and confidential discussions (including those with the UW CoMotion) are not public disclosures.

In the U.S., there is a one-year grace period after a public disclosure to file a patent application. That is, a patent application can be filed up to one year after an enabling public disclosure; after that, patent protection is unavailable. Furthermore, putting an idea or product up for sale could prevent you from obtaining a patent. Once the innovation is on the market, the clock starts ticking, and there is limited time to secure patent rights. In some important foreign jurisdictions, however, there is no grace period; once an innovation is publicly disclosed, patent protection is lost. Therefore, before publicly disclosing any innovation or discovery, researchers should first discuss intellectual property issues with a UW CoMotion innovation manager.