posted Thursday 25 of April 2013 by James [intellectual property]

An NDA or confidentiality agreement may, under certain circumstances, be enough, at least for a limited amount of time. However, ALL the large companies that I know, will refuse to sign an NDA with independent inventors, and will only review their technology, without an NDA, thus forcing the inventor to file a patent application before disclosing the invention or simply giving up their rights to what they disclose. Note a trap I've seen coming from one large company: they send an "NDA" to the inventor and ask that the inventor sign it. This seems normal, because, well, the inventor wants an NDA to be signed. However, for this company, NDA means Non-Disclosure Agreement (nothing new there), but the "Non-Disclosure" part does not mean that the company agrees not to disclose--rather, it means that the inventor agrees that any disclosure is not confidential. If the inventor is unsophisticated, they sign the agreement before filing a patent application and fall into the trap. Further, because filing a provisional patent application is easy, if you don't take this minimal step (of filing a provisional application) to protect yourself, then it would appear that the invention has no real value to you, which won't impress the company representative enough to motivate him to give you the time of day. In sum, file a provisional patent application BEFORE you disclose your invention to any third party prospective licensee or assignee.

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When you think you might have an invention with sales potential, immediately discuss the idea with a registered patent practitioner

Ensure you sketch all significant elements of your invention on paper, writing as much detail and comments regarding its' operation

After creating any descriptions or sketching your invention, ensure a witness (or even two) sign the paper to support your claim

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