The disclosure of an invention suspends the right to submit a Patent award application. Whatever the researchers’ decision about submitting a Patent award application or not, in terms of the Dependent inventions but also in the case of Service inventions, the researchers must keep full secrecy, at least temporarily, and not reveal or disclose to a third party in any way the invention’s content irrespective of whether it is a device or a method. Indicatively, the following are actions that must be avoided, at least temporarily: announcement in a scientific conference, publication of a scientific article, uploading information on the Internet, advertising method steps or selling the invention etc.
The duration of secrecy and non-involvement in the disclosure of the invention depends on the legal protection method selected for the protection of the invention:
1) if for the protection of the invention, a Patent award Application is submitted, the secrecy obligation lasts at least up to the application submission date, and18 months after that as a maximum. At that date the content of the application is disclosed and is accessible to the public without the required permit of the invention’s beneficiaries. Possible scientific publications must be suspended up to the expiry of the confidentiality period by submitting a relevant application to the editor; while
2) if for the protection of the invention, adherence to secrecy is chosen, the inventors are bound to keep the confidentiality for a long time and any possible publications must take into account the adherence to the above obligation.
Furthermore, any disclosure of the invention to a third interested buyer/investor must be carried out only after the conclusion of a special contract, entitled “CONFIDENTIALITY AND NON-DISCLOSURE CONTRACT WITH AN INVESTOR”, a model of which is set forth. Under Construction