It’s extremely important to keep your invention confidential. The reason for this is that one of the main things you need in order to be able to get a patent is for your invention to be ‘novel’. This just generally means ‘new’. The problem is, a disclosure of your invention without confidentiality in place can count as your invention no longer being ‘new’. The best way to think of it, (from an inventor’s point of view), is that your invention has to remain ‘private’.
And whilst the 12 months grace period in the American patenting system allows for some leeway when it comes to public disclosure of your invention, in pretty much every other territory in the world, (eg UK/Europe), patenting works on what could be considered a ‘brutal’ first-to file system, with no ‘grace period’. What this means is that if you publicly disclose your invention without having first filed a patent application for it, YOU LOSE THE RIGHT TO PATENT EVERYTHING YOU’VE DISCLOSED PUBLICLY.
Of course, this can be absolutely catastrophic to your patenting. And it’s not just a problem ‘in theory’- it’s not at all uncommon, for example, for American inventors to fall foul of this rule when they try to patent abroad, (eg in the UK/Europe), and many, many times, patent office examiners have cited an inventor’s own disclosure of their invention, (eg on a website the inventor has put up), against that inventor trying to patent their invention.
In fact, this can often be the worst kind of ‘prior art’, because if your own public disclosure is cited by a patent office examiner against a patent application you file for your invention, it’s more than likely your public disclosure discloses (and therefore BLOCKS) pretty much EVERYTHING you would have wanted to patent. This is often NOT the case with other prior art (ie from other inventors’ patent applications, granted patents, public disclosures, etc), because disclosures from other inventors are less likely to perfectly match/mirror your own product. But when the prior art is your OWN disclosure, it’s more likely that the disclosure is absolutely fatal to what you’re trying to patent, because your own public disclosure may well disclose everything of worth in terms of what you would have wanted to patent. So keeping things confidential is super-important.
Whilst an NDA will not save you against the example above, (ie disclosing your invention publicly on a website), the example above shows how important maintaining the ‘privacy’ of your invention can be.
Where An NDA Comes In
If you want to disclose your invention to anyone directly, one of the ways to maintain this ‘privacy’ is by getting them to sign an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement). If they sign, it means the disclosure is agreed as being confidential. Not only does this mean it’s not a ‘public’ disclosure, it also makes it very clear to the particular party/person(s) signing that they should keep your invention concept confidential, (at least as far as the rules in the NDA set out), and that there are potential legal ramifications if they do NOT keep the invention confidential.
But an NDA can perform other very important functions as well. For example, an NDA can forbid the party who signs it from carrying out any investigation, research, development or manufacture relating to your invention, (aside from what you’ve requested of them). And it can also make clear that the party you disclose to must, (if you request it of them), destroy, erase, or return any work, documents etc relating to your project.
The bottom line is, confidentiality is a prime consideration for inventors, for various reasons, and an NDA is an important tool in maintaining that. When it comes to patenting, it’s almost always better to be safe than sorry. So if you’re in any doubt whether you should get someone to sign an NDA or not, the safest course of action is always to get one signed.
Free Powerful NDA
If you want to have a powerful NDA, every inventor who comes aboard SHIINE® ENTERPRISE gets access to a powerful 1-page downloadable NDA, even on the Free Trial. It also comes with a video explaining how to fill it out, so you can do that and give it to whoever you need to sign it. It’s actually the NDA that I use myself, personally. One of the benefits of this NDA is that it’s only 1 page long, so there’s no worry about having to get a signature for each page from whoever you give it to- just one signature for that one page is fine. And it’s a powerful NDA too- it not only protects confidentiality of what you disclose, but also protects the confidentiality of anything the recipient comes up with that is ‘derived’ from your disclosure.
Feel free to pick that NDA up here as part of your free starter package, and bear in mind that, at SHIINE®, we personally sign an NDA just like this so you know that the disclosure of your invention to us is 100% confidential if you decide to go ahead with The Inventor’s Journey™. As an inventor myself, (and also someone with a significant amount of experience in patenting), I fully understand how important that is, and we take the confidentiality of your invention extremely seriously. (After all, we want to get you perfect patent protection in the amazing LightSpeed PerfectPatent™ service. at step 4 of The Inventor’s Journey™).
I hope you enjoy having the NDA- an essential tool that every inventor should have. Just a nice thing to know you now have that, whenever you need it.