What is considered a public disclosure of an invention?
Anything that is readily available to the public that describes the basic ideas in enough detail that someone else would be able to make and use the invention. Showing and/or telling about the idea or selling or offering for sale the actual product or a prototype of the invention is also considered public disclosure.
Anything that is readily available to the public, such as a journal paper, a publication on the Web, a conference presentation, or a dissertation indexed at the library, which describes the idea in enough detail that someone else would be able to make and use the invention, is public disclosure. Showing or telling your new ideas may also constitute disclosure, including website postings and laboratory visits, as does selling or offering for sale a physical embodiment of the invention.
