ALL foreign patent opportunities are usually lost if ANY disclosure occurs prior to the U.S. patent application being filed. For certain technologies, this can be a major loss, since foreign markets can account for 50 to 70 percent of the income value for a technology. If the technology is patentable, U.S. and foreign patent rights are obtainable. Please note that if your research is supported in whole or in part by federal funding, you likely have an obligation to make a disclosure of the technology to WARF prior to any public disclosures. The above disclosure rules apply only to patents.
Different rules apply to copyrights, biological materials and other intellectual property.
Give your WARF Intellectual Property Coordinator a call if you have any questions. WARF needs some lead time to consider a disclosure and, if accepted, draft an application. A total of three months is preferred, although accelerated handling is possible in some circumstances. Therefore, if you have not already talked to WARF, you should consider a disclosure to WARF at the same time you are preparing a manuscript for submission to a journal or are planning a poster session or public seminar. A disclosure interview is an opportunity for inventors to explain their inventions to WARF staff.