An inventor needs to file his invention in patent office to prohibit another person from getting grant of similar invention by the patent office or to prohibit a similar invention to be retained as a trade secret. If an inventor does not want to file his invention in the patent office, then he can use the publication approach to achieve above mentioned target. The inventor needs to publish his invention in such a way that it is easily available to a patent examiner. Some options are mentioned below on how to publish your invention which will increase chances of a patent examiner easily finding it as a prior art for another invention that may be similar to your invention.
Use Prior Art Archive
1 Prior art archive is a tool to search for a prior art for a patent application. Prior art archive is a large data set which offers upload benefit of an invention and utilizes machine learning technology to provide efficient search capability. Further, the data sets of this tool are broadly available to public through different sites such as Google Patent. We can upload our invention in this tool so that an examiner can easily find our invention as the prior art for similar invention filed as the patent application.
Use of Academic Journal/Conference
Inventors can write about their invention as an academic paper to publish in an academic journal or present in a conference. After the public presentation of the invention through the journal or the conference, the inventor needs to increase citation of the published paper so that it can easily be accessible to the public. This accessibility of the published paper ensures that the invention is present as a prior art for a patent examiner.
Use of Google Scholar
We can upload a paper (which is related to our invention) in Google Scholar data base to increase the availability of the paper for an examiner. To upload the paper in Google Scholar we need to upload the paper manually i.e. by selecting type of a paper. Further, we can use different sources that provide availability of the paper in Google Scholar. For example, Research Gate provides an opportunity for availability of the paper in Google Scholar by directly providing the paper to the database or by indexing the paper in the resource.
Indexing of Search Engine
2 To find any prior art for a patent application, an examiner typically uses Google search engine. Therefore, to present an invention as a prior art, you can use a web page providing a link for your invention which can be indexed by the search engines. This can be done by submitting a web page address to the search engines so that the search engines can provide proper indexing for the web page associated with the invention. Further, the inventor can check that crawling status of the web page by using search console. In addition to above, we need to aware of some points mentioned below to ensure inclusion of your invention in search engines data base:
- Web page should avoid binding a user to fill any login credential or any membership login to access the invention.
- Web page should avoid providing any redirect option to access the invention because google policy does not allow to use any indexing that provides redirect option to access the invention3 .
Use of Commercial Databases
4 These databases contain information in form of magazines, books, articles, research papers etc. A patent examiner sometime uses some of these commercial databases to find a prior art for a patent application. Therefore, to enable your invention as a prior art you need to submit it to these databases as well. After submitting the invention, you can also examine its availability in the commercial databases by using database retailer, internet source, a library, information professional, and personal subscription of database.
Use of Defensive Publication
This approach is mostly used in patent field to prohibit the third party from getting a patent. This approach provides any invention to be easily accessible in public domain. 5 In this approach, an inventor first publishes his invention in research journal and online data base, and after that this invention is broadcasted to patent office. In this way the inventor can bar another application for a similar invention being granted in future by an examiner.
Footnotes
2. https://neilpatel.com/blog/google-index/
3. https://www.contentkingapp.com/academy/control-crawl-indexing/
4. http://spireproject.com/database.htm
5. https://www.patracode.com/research-disclosure-defensive-publication-service/
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
