Use of academic papers to apply for a patent

You can use an academic paper as the basis for a patent application in the United Kingdom (UK). You must ensure that the paper meets all the usual patent application requirements.

You must not make the paper public before applying for a patent. If you show the paper to anyone, you should make sure that this is confidential.

Your paper will form the description of the invention for your patent application. It must contain enough information for others to reproduce your invention. It should not refer to other documents to explain the invention or to unpublished documents.

Your paper should focus on the best ways of carrying out the invention and should explain these in as much detail as possible, although the invention may have other uses.

You cannot add further information after you have applied for a patent. Therefore, your paper must contain everything that you may need to rely on at a later stage.

You must include a set of claims. You can add these to your paper when you initially apply for a patent. In the UK you can add claims within twelve months of submitting your description. However, for Patent Co-operation Treaty (PCT) applications, European applications and applications in some individual countries, you must include claims with the paper when you apply for a patent. If you wish to file a patent application in another country, you should check their specific requirements.