Publications and Public Disclosures

Publications and public disclosure of patentable inventions can prevent you from being able to file for foreign patent applications in many countries, and start a one-year grace period in which you must file for a US patent. If more than one year has passed since you published an invention, you have lost all patent rights. Please refer to the booklet on prior art.

Publications in journals, books, etc.
Published on the day the journal is mailed out from the printer

Abstracts for meetings
Published on the day the book of abstracts is mailed from the printer

Handouts given out during a poster presentation or oral presentation
Published on day handed out

Dissertations and Theses
Published on the day they are placed on the library shelves

Publications on the Internet
Published the day sent out

Posters and Oral presentations at meetings, also Seminars given at Portland State University that are advertised and open to the public - this is a grey area for US patents, a problem for European patents
Published on the day presented

Progress reports to sponsors made up of companies, where the companies have not signed a confidentiality agreement

When grants are funded, some US government agencies will post to the Internet sentences from the title or abstract of the proposal.
Try to keep key concepts for a patent out of the title or abstract of a proposal

These are NOT public disclosures because these are not open to the public:

• Departmental meetings
• Interdepartmental meetings
• Proposals (mark sections that are confidential)
• Progress Reports to sponsoring agency (mark sections that are confidential)
• Information given under a confidentiality agreement