Before you show an invention to the world

You have finally made the prototype work. A potential customer asks for a demonstration, a university event wants a presentation, or a crowdfunding page is nearly ready. Sharing feels like the natural next step. Before you take it, answer one question: what will this audience learn about how the invention works?

You can usually explain the problem and what your solution does without showing the technical detail that makes it work. Introduce a device that keeps food cold by its performance (how cold, for how long) and save the internal mechanism for a later, confidential conversation. Splitting the two conversations keeps your options open. It does not mean treating everyone you talk to as a threat.

Know what counts as disclosure

Under U.S. patent law, an invention that was patented, described in a printed publication, in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before your filing date is prior art against your application. 4 In practice that covers a paper, a poster at a conference, an online video, a public demonstration, a sale and an offer for sale. Public use and sales count wherever in the world they happen, and a sale counts even when the buyer agreed to keep the invention confidential. 4

The United States gives inventors a one-year grace period: your own public disclosure is not prior art against an application you file within one year of it. 1 Many other countries refuse a patent when a public disclosure came before the filing date, so relying on the U.S. grace period can cost you patents abroad. 1 "We have a year" is a U.S.-only plan.

An invitation-only event is not automatically confidential, and a pitch deck can reveal a great deal or very little. For each thing you plan to share, write down what it shows, who receives it, whether they signed a confidentiality agreement, and the date. If you have already shared something, make the same record of what happened. The date of your first public disclosure starts the U.S. one-year clock. 1

A filing covers only what it describes

A provisional application gives your invention an official U.S. filing date. It needs no formal claims and no oath or declaration, it is not examined on its merits, and you cannot file one for a design invention. 2 It receives a filing date only if it contains a written description of the invention that meets 35 U.S.C. 112(a), and the claims in your later nonprovisional application get that early date only where the provisional supports them. 2 A thin description uploaded the night before a presentation protects only what it describes. Anything the presentation shows beyond that is a disclosure with no filing behind it.

Say the prototype has improved since your provisional and the new version uses a different mechanism. The old filing date covers that mechanism only if the provisional described it. Before the event, put your development notes next to the filing: anything new needs its own filing before you show it.

A provisional also starts two clocks:

• 12 months to file the nonprovisional. The provisional lasts 12 months from its filing date, and that period cannot be extended. 2
• 12 months to file abroad. The provisional begins your Paris Convention priority year. Applications you file in other member countries within 12 months are treated as if they were filed on the same day as your first application. 1 2 If you made the invention in the United States, you need a foreign filing license from the USPTO before you file anywhere else; a U.S. application counts as a petition for one. 1

To file, use Patent Center, include the cover sheet (form PTO/SB/16) and pay the filing fee listed on the USPTO fee schedule. 2 Have a registered patent attorney or agent compare the provisional with exactly what you plan to show before the event: what the document describes, not its date, decides what is covered.

Decide what stays secret

Not every innovation needs a patent. A trade secret is information that is commercially valuable because it is secret, known only to a limited group of people, and protected by reasonable steps to keep it secret, such as non-disclosure agreements with employees and business partners. 3 It does not stop anyone who develops the same information on their own or works it out by reverse engineering. 3 A manufacturing method that never leaves your facility is a good candidate for secrecy. A mechanism anyone can see by opening the product is not. A patent is the opposite trade: the invention becomes public. 3 Keeping valuable know-how a secret covers the steps.

Choose your option for the event

For the upcoming demonstration, pick one of these:

1. Show the result, not the mechanism. Demonstrate what the device does and keep the inside closed.
2. Hold the technical discussion under a signed non-disclosure agreement. 3 Do it as a conversation, not a sale: a confidential sale still counts as "on sale". 4
3. File first, then present. File the provisional on the version you will actually show. 2 Finding your way through the patent process explains what comes after.
4. Move the event if a filing that describes what you will show cannot be ready in time.

If the event is close, make this decision now, not afterwards. Know what each audience will learn, what you have on file, and which countries you care about, and you can talk about the invention with confidence.