Does the declaration of an invention put my planned publication at risk?
Does the declaration of an invention put my planned publication at risk?
This is only in rare cases a problem. However, it is important to submit your invention as early as possible.
We recommend to get in touch with us, when your research results are available and when you expect them to constitute an invention or if you want to clarify, if your results have an economical potential and if this should be protected.
The best time to submit an invention is, when the first draft of your planned publication is finished. This draft can then be attached to your invention declaration to supplement the description of your invention. Between this point in time and the publication of your paper there usually is enough time to evaluate the invention and to professionally draft and file a patent application. This however, has definitively to be done before your paper as well as preliminary online abstracts are published.
Nevertheless, sometimes inventions are only submitted shortly before their imminent publication. In these cases journals are often willing to delay the publication in order to file a patent application. Alternatively and if the invention obviously has a high economic potential, the filing of a provisional (not fully legally drafted) patent application based on your publication draft could be an option to achieve patent protection.
