Disclosure Document Program to be Eliminated

Effective February 1, 2007, the Disclosure Document Program will be eliminated. The Program was started by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 1969 as a way to provide a form of evidence of the date of an invention. In the U.S. patents may be granted to the first person(s) to invent "...any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof", so proving the date of conception can be very important. Through the program, an inventor could have a description of an invention date stamped and filed at the USPTO for a period of time as a way of showing evidence of invention by that date.

Insufficient benefit to inventors and frequent confusion about the nature and effect of a Disclosure Document were cited as reasons for eliminating the program. The Final Rule eliminating the Program was published on November 3 in the Federal Register. All documents not received by January 31, 2007 at the USPTO will be returned to the application filer.