What constitutes a public disclosure?
Generally defined, public disclosure is any communication to someone not obliged to keep the communication confidential. An enabling public disclosure occurs when you provide others who are skilled in the art (not center employees) with information that enables them to recreate your discovery. In patent law, an enabling public disclosure can defeat patentability if it is both public and enabling. Public disclosures include: oral presentations, meeting and grant abstracts, posters, papers, monographs, book chapters, letters, internet publications, Genbank submissions, etc.
