Take the necessary steps to protect your idea before you begin to publish or publicly discuss it, or you may waive your future patent rights. Technically, in the United States, you have a year to file a patent, but other countries are not so lenient. Your best bet is to submit a technology disclosure form to the MIT Technology Licensing Office (TLO), which will begin a process that may lead to a provisional patent.
WEB RESOURCES
From the MIT TLO
Technology Disclosure Forms
Software Code Disclosure Forms
Non-Disclosure Forms
http://web.mit.edu/tlo/www/misc/forms.html
MIT TLO home page
For more information about protecting your idea and how technology licensing
works at MIT
http://web.mit.edu/tlo/www/
US Patent Office
The United States Patent and Trademark Office has an online database with every
patent ever issued, as well as information on what a patent means and how to
apply for one.
http://www.uspto.gov
National Inventors Hall of Fame
Includes an online workshop for learning how to patent an idea, and information
about the collegiate inventors competition.
http://www.invent.org
ARTICLES
The Importance of Patents
By Joe Hadzima, Jr.
Publish and perish: what constitutes a bar under the patent laws
By Rachel Teitelbaum & Mark S. Cohen in Nature Biotechnology
What constitutes public disclosure? Recent court rulings have broadened
the definition of "publication." It pays to be careful when discussing
or presenting your innovations before you've filed a patent.
MIT COURSES
The following IAP courses are available on IP and patent law:
Everything
You Wanted to Know about Patents: The Patent Process
Everything
You Wanted to Know about Patents: Patent Searching Fundamentals
The following MIT classes focus on intellectual property protection
and patent law:
3.172,
6.901, 16.652, 22.084 Inventions and Patents
6.931
Development of Inventions and Creative Ideas
15.628
Patents, Copyrights, and the Law of Intellectual Property (Revised
Content)
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