Question About Pending Patents

[honorchair]

What is the name of your state? CT

A business associate of ours who has a business idea with a pending patent would like to open discussions with a large company. He wants them to sign an NDA/Confidentiality agreement in advance of that conversation. They do not want to sign. In the draft of the NDA/Confidentiality document he sent them, it lists the name of the product/process he is trying to patent, along with the phrase "Patent Pending" and the application number.

My question is, could someone who wanted to see what the application said, thus learning about the idea, use the application number to get access to the application as a public record, or are they sealed and protected for the applicant's sake?

Thanks very much -

Dan

 

[divgradcurl]

What is the name of your state? CT

A business associate of ours who has a business idea with a pending patent would like to open discussions with a large company. He wants them to sign an NDA/Confidentiality agreement in advance of that conversation. They do not want to sign. In the draft of the NDA/Confidentiality document he sent them, it lists the name of the product/process he is trying to patent, along with the phrase "Patent Pending" and the application number.

My question is, could someone who wanted to see what the application said, thus learning about the idea, use the application number to get access to the application as a public record, or are they sealed and protected for the applicant's sake?

Thanks very much -

Dan

If the application was subject to pre-grant publication, then the originally-filed application would be public record, and anyone could do a search on the USPTO website and find it. Basically, every application is subject to pre-grant publication (usually happens at 18 months after filing) unless the applicant specifically requests non-publication, and the applicant is not seeking patent protection in other countries under the PCT.

So, if the pending patent is more than 18 months old, it's probably published. You can check for yourself, go to www.uspto.gov, go to patents, then search, then search applications, and if it's published, you will find it.

The record of the prosecution history, however, remains confidential until the patent actually issues. Only the original application is subject to pre-grant publication.