When should you contact us?

Most academic patent applications are driven by one of two events:

• Submission of a grant, with the idea for an invention
• Preparation of a manuscript for publication, containing the results that demonstrate the invention.

It’s a good general rule to contact us earlier rather than later. If an invention appears in print before a patent application is filed, the ability to obtain worldwide rights is lost.

A summary of the suitability of the different timing options is as follows:

Invention Development Stage	Timing of Submission of Disclosure
Innovation: what to do	Premature
Conception: how to do it	Best
Reduction to Practice: make it work	Very Good
Preparation of a Paper: describe it	Good
Submission of a Paper or Abstract:	Poor
Immediately Prior to Public Disclosure	Poor
Post-Publication or Disclosure	Very Poor: foreign patent rights lost

However, filing a patent application starts certain clocks ticking that can’t be stopped or turned back. File too early and we may get to major financial milestones too early, before the commercial justification is there.

In short, we need to work together to try and optimize timing.