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I was having a conversation with my supervisor yesterday. He mentioned something about patent memo. Something that you can write your idea down, date it, have some witnesses to sign it and put it away. In case some day you need to patent the idea but someone else wants to patent the same idea. So that you can present the patent memo to prove that you have the idea first.

I tried to Google it, but nothing came up. Can anyone confirm such thing exists and is valid?

Thanks

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1 Answer

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Big companies, universities, etc use a form or template usually call an "invention disclosure form" as a way internally to capture the key information close to the time of the invention. Then it may go to a patent committee for evaluation along with other internal ideas as to which ones make business sense to pursue. I think that is what he is calling a patent memo.

Starting with applications filed on or after March 16 2013 these documents will not be able to be used to prove much. In the U.S. we go to a first to file system and when you invented it is not relevant unless there is an issue of a 3rd party saying you got the idea from them or visa versa

This is a sample document I found.

invention disclosure form

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Thank you, this is really helpful. – Firyn Mar 8 at 18:38

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