Research Disclosure - The industry standard defensive publication service

It is simple and effective

Simply email your disclosure to us and we will publish it both online and in print. Typically your disclosure will be date stamped, online and searchable directly after we receive your confirmation. We will then also publish it in the next Research Disclosure journal.

You retain complete control over the content; there is no scrutiny of the text by editors, examiners or referees and we accept disclosures in any language, with or without illustrations.

Above all our service is effective. Research Disclosure puts inventions in front of examiners in every patent office in the world, and secures them with a date stamp which can be relied on in any future litigation. No other disclosure service matches Research Disclosure in this area.

Visibility

When you publish a disclosure you need it to be found by patent examiners. If they do not find your disclosure a patent may be granted on it, leaving you to take the patent assignee to court to win back the right to use your own invention.

Research Disclosure is unique in being the only defensive publication service that patent offices are required to search by Patent Co-operation Treaty (PCT) statute. Patent offices have been receiving Research Disclosure for over 50 years and prize it as a key source of non-patent prior art. The USPTO takes 35 copies of the monthly journal as well as a database subscription and the EPO paid to have the Research Disclosure database incorporated into EPOQUE, their own in-house database system.

Research Disclosure is the only defensive publication service to be employed seriously in patent citations. A recent search of the USPTO's database alone revealed that Research Disclosure had been cited more than 20,000 times.

The paper Research Disclosure journal is made publicly available at major libraries around the world. The online database is available through the researchdisclosure.com website and at leading database host sites including STN, LexisNexis and Questel Orbit. Disclosures are also abstracted into the Derwent World Patent Index (DWPI) database.

PCT Minimum Documentation

Patent Offices nominated and WIPO granted Patent Co-operation Treaty (PCT) Minimum Documentation status to Research Disclosure. This obliges all International Search Authorities (ISAs) to search Research Disclosure when examining patent applications.

Anonymous publication

Many of our disclosing inventors choose not to draw attention to the fact that they are working in a particular field so Research Disclosure allows disclosures to be published anonymously. Over our 50 years of service we have established a reputation for discretion and security.

Cost effective

The Research Disclosure service is economical. We charge a modest one-off fee for full paper and online publication. There are no setup costs and no hidden charges. With patent fees rising, Research Disclosure is an affordable, easy and highly valuable alternative or, in some cases, addition to patenting.

Legal status

Research Disclosure is recognized by tribunals round the world as proof of prior art and has helped to settle many high profile cases.

This acceptance can save you substantial litigation costs if you are forced to protect your rights in court. Web publication services cannot say the same.

For example European tribunals have ruled that web pages cannot offer certainty as to when a piece of prior art was published. By publishing full disclosures in print as well as online (at no extra cost), Research Disclosure is accepted as proof of disclosure in both Europe and the USA alike.

Research Disclosure has established itself as authoritative in courts worldwide.

World’s longest running service

Research Disclosure has built up a prior art archive going back 50 years. We started publishing disclosures in 1960 and have remained the industry standard ever since. Why? Companies that publish with us know that they can rely on their disclosures being found by the patent authorities and they know they can rely on our publication date in any litigation.

We are flattered that many have tried to copy our system over the years, but their imitations have been short lived. They do not have established reputations that hold up in court. They are not searched routinely by the patent authorities when deciding applications. Which means their clients publish, but may still end up in court fighting the grant of a patent to a third party.