Research Disclosure

Research Disclosure - Journal & Electronic

Research Disclosure, or RD, is the unique international defensive publication service that allows the world’s intellectual property community to quickly establish prior art, in any language they choose. It has enjoyed the happy position of being the world’s industry standard disclosure journal for decades. RD is published monthly as a paper journal and as an on-line database product with advanced full text searching capabilities.

RD’s archive of fully searchable disclosures are available now for on-line searching. Our database constitutes the most significant non-patent prior art collection in the world and is growing daily. Little wonder the patent examiners have welcomed it with open arms. It is also good news for our corporate clients as the electronic search means that their disclosure is almost 100% certain to be found quickly by the examiners. Corporate subscribers can instantly post as many electronic disclosures as they wish and also download any disclosure on the database, so providing them with a powerful tool for in-house patentability and validity searching purposes.

There is no point in publishing a disclosure to establish prior art if the patent examiners don’t see it. Over the years searching authorities have relied on RD as their main source of non patent prior art so you can rely on it being searched worldwide by the people who matter - RD is regularly cited in patent applications. The journal’s importance is borne out by a recent search of just the USPTO’s US Patents Database which alone revealed that RD has been cited some 14,000 times.

'A recent search of the
US Patents Database
revealed that
RD has been
cited some
14,000 times'

Many of our disclosing inventors choose not to draw attention to the fact that they are working in a particular field so RD allows disclosures to be published anonymously. The disclosure text is completely under the control of the disclosing party; there is no scrutiny of the text by editors, examiners or referees. The publication process is very rapid and you can calculate precisely when publication will occur. RD also accepts and publishes disclosures in any language.

And the legal status? RD has been successfully cited in challenges to patents granted after a prior art disclosure. The month of the paper publication establishes a verifiable date that the invention or idea did indeed exist at that time. It is easy to establish the date of publication of a disclosure in RD as the journal is always published by the 12th of each month and provides an international legal standing.

Remember - electronic disclosure alone cannot yet offer this proven date protection and it will be many years before legal precedents are established worldwide to permit its legally reliable use.

Using the service is simple. Submit your disclosure to us and we will publish it for you in both the paper journal and the electronic database for a single, modest, one off fee and it will be available for examiners to search for ever more. It should be remembered that with a patent not only are there filing fees but also there are then maintenance fees that increase on a sliding scale during the lifetime of the patent. With RD there are no filing or maintenance fees, in fact the service is very economical, cost effective and hassle free.