Defensive publication/Defensive disclosure

Defensive Publication:
A defensive publication, or defensive disclosure, is an intellectual property strategy used to prevent another party from obtaining a patent on a product, apparatus or method for instance. The strategy is placing Innovations and inventions in the public domain by means of enabling defensive publications (defensive publication). When an enabling publication is made, no one else can get a patent for the invention. The inventor and others share the benefits of the invention. Publication is the least expensive means of ensuring continued freedom of use of an innovation. If no measures are taken to protect an invention, an inventor may find themselves the object of a patent enforcement action by a subsequent inventor. This could result in having to prove prior invention, or paying royalties. The defensive publication route is especially useful for innovations that do not warrant the high costs incurred in patent applications but to which scientists do want to retain access.

Literature searches are typically a main element of patent grant procedures. Lack of published documentation on an innovation—or lack of such documentation in the literature traditionally reviewed by patent examiners may indicate to a patent examiner that the innovation is indeed new and worthy of patent protection. Even older innovations might be judged patent-worthy if a search reveals no published record of the invention. In one case, Indian activists challenged the 1995 award of patent rights over products traditionally derived by local communities from the spice turmeric, persuading the US Patent and Trademark Office to revoke the patent by pointing out literature referring to the “invention” published previous to the patent application date. Effective defensive publication thus can keep innovations out of the private domain and open for use by scientists both in the developing and the developed world, without fear of patent infringement on their part or on the part of the end-users of their products.

We at PSI have good experience in drafting this type of publications and proved our quality time and again, our draft will enable ordinary skilled in art inorder to make and use the invention so our publication will become a stronger prior art for a patent application if made on similar lines.